September 8, 2025, 3:30 PM - An interesting Humpback pair and an uncommon orca pod!
It’s not every day that we see new humpback whales AND new orca to us in the same trip, but that was the case today. We started the adventure by heading into the Strait of Georgia, searching east until we reached a local hotspot for marine wildlife: Halibut Bank. This bank (or underwater hill) causes local upwelling, which helps to increase the productivity of the area! Upwelling brings oxygen-rich cold water from deeper in the water column to the surface, allowing Phytoplankton at the base of the food chain to grow and reproduce more efficiently. Lots of animals can be found here, taking advantage of that spike in productivity from the small zooplankton that feeds on the phytoplankton, all the way up to the top of the food chain, the apex predators, the orca that feed on other Marine Mammals, eating the fish, spending time here, also feeding. Today it wasn’t these apex predators that were spotted here, though, but rather something that feeds lower in the trophic levels: the humpback whales! We spotted a pair of them, Wallace (KEX0014) and Eros (BCX2201), travelling together here.
Humpback whales are filter feeders, primarily feeding on small krill that in turn feed on phytoplankton. Humpbacks will usually feed at depths of between 100 and 200 meters, although there is some variation in that! These two seemed to dive relatively deep today, though, as they would lift their tails high before disappearing below the surface, chasing down their prey for a few minutes. After spending some time feeding, they seemed to transition into rest mode, their movements slowing down slightly, and their tails showing off a bit less as they stopped making deeper dives. It’s always exciting to witness the whales doing a behavioural change like this! These two whales in themselves are relatively interesting, as this is the first time that Wallace has been seen on one of our tours, and Eros is a less common whale as well, only being spotted a couple of times a season. Wallace, in particular, has a tough history, bearing the scarring of both ship strikes (from the propeller marks on his dorsal surface) as well as entanglement. Even with all this, he has another interesting note: he was one of the first whales to be recorded feeding on the herring run in the Salish Sea, off of Comox! While it’s always been thought that these spawns would be great feeding for a humpback, they are typically down south when the spawn occurs, but Wallace must have returned early and was seen feeding close to shore for a few days. It was great to spend some quality time with these two, but while watching them, we got word of some orca not too far away, so we decided to head over.
Upon arriving, we were greeted with some familiar and some new fins. It seemed that we had two pods travelling together today: the T019s and some members of the T059s! From our photos, it seems the following whales were present:
T019 Nootka ♀ (~1965)
T019B Galiano ♂ (1995)
T019C Spouter ♂ (2001)
T059 ♀ (<1970)
T059A1 ♀ (2006)
T059A1A (2023)
While orca spend most of their time travelling in Matriarchal Pods, sometimes its not so easy to track. Lucky for us, we can learn a bit about the family connections of the T059s present by their numbers. Transient Orca have an alpha-numerical naming system in place. When first catalogued, they were all assigned numbers as they were seen, and then when they started reproducing, calves would get an alphabetical assignment based on the order of their birth. If they are female and have thei own calves, then it would flip back to a number, and so on and so forth it would continue with the generations. It can get a bit complicated as time goes on, which is why most orca also have nicknames. Since the T059s are rare to see, they unfortunately don’t currently have any nicknames. Hopefully this will change if we start seeing them more!
Thinking about this naming system, we can see the T019s follow the pod composition very well, we have the second and third born sons travelling with their mom. The T059s present aren’t so easy! Although T059A1 and T059A1A are a perfect pair, a mom with her 2 year old calf, they are currently travelling with their grandmother! Their mother, T059A, is still thought to be alive and well, but (likely due to pod size) they have dispursed. The fact that they’ve been spending time with grandma instead is very interesting, especially given that T059 seems to take a bit of time bouncing between a few of her grandkids. Orca are known to share knowledge, so she is likely passing wisdom on to her bloodline, to help increase their general fitness. This knowledge transfer from older individuals is known to be very important for orca.
We enjoyed every moment with these whales before it was time again to leave them to their travels, and we pointed back towards Nanaimo. We felt so lucky to have seen uncommon whales from both species during the tour today as we found ourselves back in the Nanaimo Harbour. The onboard Marine Naturalists from the day: Cheyenne Brewster and Vanessa Vereschahen, captured some amazing photos from the day, which are available to view below!
Eros lifting his tail for a dive. Photo by Cheyenne Brewster.
Eros’ dorsal fin as he surfaces. Photo by Cheyenne Brewster.
Wallace surfacing just in front of Eros. Photo by Cheyenne Brewster.
The underside of Wallace’s tail. Photo by Vanessa Vereschahen.
You can see the scarring on Wallace’s dorsal surface left behind by a boat propeller. Photo by Vanessa Vereschahen.
The underside of Wallace’s tail as he dives. Photo by Vanessa Vereschahen.
Kula watching the humpbacks. Photo by Cheyenne Brewster.
T019 Nootka in the lead, followed by T059A1 and T019B Galiano. Photo by Cheyenne Brewster.
T059 followed by T018B Galiano and T059A1. Photo by Cheyenne Brewster.
T019 Nootka surfacing just behind T059A1. Photo by Cheyenne Brewster.
A great look at T019B Galiano. Photo by Cheyenne Brewster.
T019B Galiano, T019C Spouter, and T059 surfacing together. Photo by Cheyenne Brewster.
T019 Nootka in te lead, with T059, T059A1, and T019B Galiano behind her. Photo by Cheyenne Brewster.
T018B Galiano surfacing, showing off his eye patch. Photo by Cheyenne Brewster.
T019 Nootka sandwhiched between T059 (front) and T059A1 (back). Photo by Cheyenne Brewster.
T019C Spouter surfacing behind T059A1. Photo by Vanessa Vereschahen.
T059A1A surfacing in front of T019B Galiano and T019 Nootka. Photo by Vanessa Vereschahen.
T019B Galiano breaking through the waves. Photo by Vanessa Vereschahen.
A gull floating by. Photo by Vanessa Vereschahen.
A California Sea Lion enjoying a good stretch. Photo by Cheyenne Brewster.
A Great Blue Heron on the log booms. Photo by Cheyenne Brewster.
Steller Sea Lion on the UM buoy. Photo by Vanessa Vereschahen.
A fight breaking out on the buoy. Photo by Vanessa Vereschahen.