R/V Cheena

We departed Snug Harbor at 8 AM following reports of Southern Resident killer whales north of San Juan channel. We were joined by Sarah Teaman, a research assistant from our partners at SeaDoc Society. We headed west of Waldron Island where we searched for whales until around 1:30 pm. With no new reports or sightings, we decided to return to Snug Harbor. As we were offloading gear from the research vessel, we received a report of sighting of J pod and L pod members near East Point. We raced back to the boat, loaded up, and headed out to join up with them. We initially encountered the whales near the lighthouse on Stewart Island and remained behind them as they headed south. Fairly quickly after locating them, Eba detected a scent and led us to collect several fecal samples. We then followed J36, J31, and J56, who were soon joined by some other J pod members. After a long day on the water, we returned back to Snug Harbor just after 6 PM as the whales were traveling south.

After departing Snug Harbor at 8 AM, we encountered J pod orcas and trailed them south along the west side of San Juan Island. They were traveling quickly, displaying surface behaviors like tail slapping, breaching, cartwheels, rolling, and frequent porpoising. We collected environmental and behavior data and sampled the group until we returned to Snug Harbor just after 5 PM.

Just after 10 AM, our team departed Snug Harbor and turned north towards Henry Island. We encountered a large pod of mostly J pod whales on the island’s west side. Most of the pod moved quickly past us, but about five individuals fell behind the leading group and exhibited surface behaviors like lunging, surface rolls, spy hops, pec slaps, and tail slaps. We then saw that this group of 5 orcas was chasing a juvenile harbor porpoise. 2 orcas left the group soon after, and the three others proceeded to pass the juvenile porpoise for another 20 minutes. Upon receiving permission from the stranding network, we attempted to collect the dead harbor porpoise for an examination and necropsy, but we abandoned the effort when one of the juvenile whales surprised us and recaptured the body of the harbor porpoise. We followed the group for about 30 minutes waiting to collect the body should the group of orcas abandon it, but J36 held onto it until it presumably sank. We continued down the west side of San Juan Island, following the group as they spread throughout Haro Strait. We resumed our search for fecal samples until returning to Snug Harbor just after 5 PM.

Read more about this unique encounter here.

Southern Resident killer whales were spotted on the west side of San Juan Island in the morning rain. The Wild Orca research crew departed from Snug Harbor and headed south down Haro straight towards Hannah Heights where they encountered a group of four whales spread loosely and foraging in the rip current at Edwards point. The whales were socially active most of the day stopping to socialize and possibly forage several times between Lime Kiln Lighthouse and Stewart Island. One fecal sample was located at 2:15 about a mile offshore between Lime Kiln State Park and the San Juan County park. Similar to the sample collected on the 26th this sample was also quite small although while the first one was wispy this one was very sticky and both of them were green which was interesting.