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(Rachel A & Sarah M - 07/08/17 – M/V Sea Lion - 01:30 PM & 05:30 PM)
We had an absolutely beautiful day out on the M/V Sea Lion today! Our first trip was filled with sunshine and a beautiful sea breeze and our second trip had an amazing sunset, and of course the whales were amazing as well. On our first and second trip we watched the T37A’s and the lone male T51. The T37A’s are a family of 4 made up of mom and her three juvenile offspring. T37A1, T37A’s oldest offspring, travels separately from the group in order to keep the pod numbers lower. It is not uncommon for this to happen in transient family groupings, but on other occasions offspring will stay with their mom for life. We think that the whales fragment their pods in order to effectively hunt. If you think about it it really doesn’t make sense to have 10 whales going after one harbor seal, so to mitigate this some of the older offspring will break off and start their own pod.
Now just because the whales travel separately doesn’t mean they won’t group up from time to time and hang out as a whole family. T51 is a lone male whose family has all passed away so sometimes he will group up with other families and hang out with them for a period of time. There are also instances, in both the resident and transient community, of lone males being adopted into families. On our first trip the entire group worked together to make a kill and feed. We watched as they thrashed at the surface of the water killing their prey.
Our second trip we saw the same family slowly traveling North in a relaxed manner. We marveled at how close the whales were traveling to one another and the amount of coordination it takes to surface all together as a family. We watched the orcas pass by Kelp Reef in the middle of Haro Strait, and head for the Southern Canadian Gulf Islands as the sun was setting. Everytime the whales took a long dive we prepared to potentially see another kill. Instead of a kill, we go awesome looks as the whales traveled in the smooth water through the sunset.
It was a memorable day out on the water for all!
