Elle | M/V Osprey | July 18, 2022 |12:30PM
Today we followed reports of Bigg's killer whales up into Canada. We departed Friday Harbor and sped up to Saturna Island, hoping to find them before they left the area. Luckily, these whales got caught up with a hunt between Saturna Island, North Pender Island, and Mayne Island. When we arrived onto the scene, we saw two five-foot-tall black fins. This indicated to us that we were looking at two teenage male orca whales. They have been identified as T65A3 (Amira) and T49A2 (Jude), both born in 2007 to two different families. They have been called the "butcher boys" after a few days of hunting carnage here in the San Juan Islands. When we found them, they were swimming erratically around a rocky reef which had some harbor seals on it, making lots of splashes. This behavior tells us that they are on the hunt or actively eating their prey. As we watched their hunt, a mother and pup harbor seal popped up right next to our bow, trying to stay far away from the massive mammal-eating orcas. After about thirty minutes watching these whales hunt, we turned back south to see what else we could find. On our way back to Friday Harbor, we saw a huge haul-out of harbor seals, many of them with pups! Summer is pupping season for those seals here in the San Juan Islands. Soaring overhead and swooping down to scavenge, we saw a pair of bald eagles, too! These were one of over 150 mating pairs here in the Salish Sea.