R/V Cheena

In the morning, we received reports that Southern Resident killer whales were inbound towards the San Juan Islands. It was a sunny day with mild to medium wind and ideal for collecting fecal samples. Eba, Jim, Giles, Research Assistants Aisha, and Nikhela left the dock to fuel up before meeting the whales. We made contact at around 1:30 pm and got a report from The Center for Whale Research that members of J pod were present.

The whales were spread along the west side of San Juan Island, and we made first contact with a large male near Hannah Heights. Giles identified him as J38. Following our contact with J38, we saw many more members of J Pod exhibiting mixed behaviors from play to logging. We have confirmation that we were with J19, J47, J44, J53, and the J16s. Between 1:00 pm and 3:00 pm, we observed a lot of breaching, tail slaps, and pec slaps. Additionally, we observed modified rest, with some whales coming together to log. Around 4:00 pm, Eba hit on a scent, and we found the first fecal sample of the day shortly after.

Between 5:15-5:25 pm, we collected another sample offshore of the San Juan Island County Park. The scent of the fecal matter was so strong even we could smell it! We returned to our home port around 6:00 pm and froze the samples after additional processing in the evening.

We spotted a large dorsal fin about halfway between Point Roberts, USA, and East Point on Saturna Island, BC, a little over an hour after leaving our home port. The whale turned out to be J27 (Blackberry), and we trailed him downwind and at a distance of more than 400 meters for about 30 minutes – until Soundwatch contacted us on the radio to say they had a group of 3 animals grouped up close to the beach near Point Roberts. We decided to head inshore to find the group, hoping that more whales might up our chances of finding a sample. By the time we arrived, the whales had headed offshore, spread out, and commenced foraging.

Over the course of the entire encounter, we were never with more than two animals, with their next nearest neighbor being several hundred to several thousand meters away. Indeed, as we scanned the area looking for another group to follow, we saw whales breaching several miles to the west of our location, along the northeast coast of Galiano Island.

Since J pod returned to the inland waters of the Salish Sea on May 31st, researchers from both the Center for Whale Research and SR3 have noted the whales as being spread out, indicating the whales are spending a lot of their behavioral time budget foraging far apart from one another, most likely to increase the possibility of finding the Chinook salmon or other prey items that are themselves, few and far between.
Given the increasing oncoming winds and flooding tides, we returned back to Snug Harbor.

After receiving confirmation that the orcas spotted in San Juan Channel were Southern Resident killer whales, the team headed to the boat at Snug Harbor. While preparing the boat for the day, we received a report that four J pod whales were off Eagle Point. We headed down the west side of San Juan Island, even though the water conditions were rough, at least a three on the Beaufort scale, making our travel down the island quite rough. Despite our constant scanning for whale dorsal fins, we did not encounter any whales before turning north into Cattle Pass.

As we traveled North into San Juan Channel, Dave Ellifrit from the Center for Whale Research radioed to tell us he was heading back south to try to locate the J16 matriline and J22 matriline as he had not yet encountered them. Shortly after arriving on scene, we encountered a large group of whales with significantly better water conditions; we positioned ourselves downwind and to the side of whales from the J11, J14, and J19 matrilines.

Overall, the group was slow traveling and occasionally socializing or engaged in “logging” behavior most of the time we were with them. However, if one phrase could be used to describe the whales’ behavior during our time with them, it would be LONG DIVE TIMES! The amount of time the whales were underwater is more often documented with Bigg’s (Transient) mammal-eating killer whales. Predicting where the whales will resurface when they are on such long dives is harder.

We continued to search for fecal samples when the whales turned South and headed out of Cattle Pass towards Salmon Bank, but as the water was even more choppy than it was earlier, we decided to head back to our home port by going “up and over” San Juan Island via the more sheltered water of San Juan Channel.