It was a beautiful sunny afternoon as our boats pulled away from the docks. We knew it would be a great day on the water as guests were treated to a river otter sunbathing on the dock before the tours even started! As we ventured into the Georgia Strait, it didn’t take long for us to stumble on our first whales, two young humpbacks! These two whales were Schooner (BCY1462) and Moraine (BCY1465). It was wonderful to catch up with Schooner in particular, as it was our first sighting of him since he suffered from a horrific injury last summer.

Schooner is a good reminder as to why it’s so important to follow rules and regulations around the whales that call these waters home. We often remind guests that we must maintain a distance of 100 meters or more from our humpbacks. When there is a calf present, as there often is later in the summer months, we give them even more space and stay 200m away.

Some whales get used to human interactions and become all too comfortable around boats. This type of behaviour is called ‘mugging’, and we often see whales acting on their curiosity, approaching boats, and even interacting with them. When this happens, it’s important to shut your engines off to eliminate the risk of injury to the animals. For whales like Schooner, who have gotten too comfortable interacting with boats, we can see catastrophic injuries occur. This can include severe injury from propellers, as well as body damage from boat strikes. While we don’t know the exact circumstances of how Schooner received his injury, the most likely explanation is that Schooner got too friendly with a boat that did not have its engines shut off. As a result, Schooners’ left fluke was likely severed from the propeller (you can see the injury partly healed in this blog).

We were worried about Schooner’s survival prospects over the winter. Regardless of his horrific injury, he still had to put on large amounts of fat in order to successfully migrate back to the breeding grounds in Hawaii. Despite the adversity he faced, Schooner was spotted in Hawaii over the winter and has now completed the migration back to his feeding grounds here in the Salish Sea. On our trip, Schooner looked well, and we are hopeful for his long-term survival!

After hanging out with our humpbacks, we got word of some potential orcas closer to Vancouver, so we made our way across the Strait. When we arrived, we quickly identified the orcas as the T124A2 matriline and the T86A1 matriline.

T086A1 Nahanni ♀ (2001)
T086A1B Denali (2023)

T124A2 Elkugu ♀ (2001)
T124A2A Agafia ♂ (2013)
T124A2B Litton ♀ (2016)

Elkugu and Nahanni might be the same age, but that doesn’t mean they are in the same stage of life. Elkugu is an experienced matriarch who dispersed from her mom years ago. Nahanni, on the other hand, only dispersed from her own mother last year after her, her mother Eider and her sister Tyndall all had calves around the same time. Female Bigg’s often help raise their daughters’ first calf for the first few years. Because Nahanni and Tyndall had calves at the same time as mom, she had to focus on her own baby, leaving her daughters to fend for themselves.

Luckily, Elkugu is not only experienced with her own calves, but she seems to have a soft spot for mothers in need. In 2021, Elkugu’s younger sister Sabio experienced a similar situation to Nahanni, where she had to leave the family with a brand new calf. Elkugu helped her sister raise that calf until Sabio could rejoin their mother. Then last summer, Elkugu spent months with Nahanni’s sister Tyndall, helping another young mother with her new baby. Now, she seems to be spending time with Nahanni and her calf. It’s always interesting to speculate why an orca would spend time and energy on something that could hinder their own chance of survival, but it’s also a reminder that these are complex, intelligent, compassionate and social animals, and there isn’t always a survival benefit to everything that they do.

On top of seeing both our humpbacks as well as our orcas, we were treated to a variety of other wildlife, including Bald eagles, Harbour seals and California sea lions. You can check out the pictures from our trip below!

Photos by naturalists Aly Kohlman and Hayleigh Hilbert.

May 6, 2025 - Baby Sitters Club