It was yet another beautiful day in the San Juan's as the M/V Sea Lion departed Friday Harbor and headed North. The killer whales we had heard rumor of up in Canada had begun to travel in our direction and were supposed to meet up with us within the hour! Excitement ran high from guests and crew alike, when we finally got on scene we all witnessed some awesome behavior!
I was just explaining to guests that we were watching Biggs killer whales, better known as transients. These are the mammal hunting orcas that exists in and around the waters of the Salish Sea. I was telling guests how transients usually have very sporadic movements and are very unpredictable. Everything about these whales is geared towards better exploiting their pretty resource ... Soon after I got done talking about their unpredictable behavior, we watched as the T090 and T124A group broke into two separate groups and headed in a diagonal line right for shore. They were down for long dive periods, and traveling at fast speeds. They were hunting.
After about 30 minutes of persistently watching the water, we started to see some surface activity. T124A4 and the rest of their group were tail slapping, cartwheeling, and propelling out of the water. They were hunting a harbor seal and were trying to tire it out. They hunted the harbor seal for at least an hour and a half! It was incredible. In the end, the harbor seal actually 'jumped ship'. The little seal (who was actually a full grown 250 lb adult) took refuge in a small fishing boat just after we'd left the scene! You never know what'll happen out here!
Heather, Naturalist, M/V Sea Lion
San Juan Safaris