The New Normal?

The purpose of this column is to give you information on what we're seeing on the water during our
tours. We're in our third decade doing these tours on the water observing the “food chain”, and still
amazed at what we see. This column will provide you info on what we're seeing on our trips as well as
news regarding the ecosystem in other parts of the world.

The New Normal?

Whale sightings in the area are similar to what we experienced last year. We have been seeing
numerous groups of transient orca whales, Minke whales out around Eastern and Hein Bank, and a few humpback whales near Race Rocks and in the Georgia Strait.

There still isn’t consistent sightings of our resident whales, the J, K and L pod’s. It’s not unusual to have K and L pod out of the area until maybe mid-June but, not having J pod here is not normal compared to the past 26 years we’ve been doing whale watching here.

By early May J pod should be foraging on the west side of San Juan Island every day with occasional forays up to the Fraser River feeding on the Fraser River chinook salmon run. K and L pod used to show up in late May, early June.

This year so far, J pod made an appearance in the islands, went half way up to the Fraser River and then left back out to the Pacific within 24 hours. It’s obvious they are not finding enough salmon here to keep them fat and happy.

This is the same scenario that we experienced last year when the Fraser River salmon run collapsed. This year the predictions are much better. We’ll see if last year was a “bump in the road” and the residents return and stay.

It’s like the transient orca whales, (whales that we might see three or four times a season in years past), have become the residents here and the residents transients.

You may have read about Granny, J-2, the oldest whale in J pod and possibly the oldest orca whale in the world at 103 years old. She made worldwide news with her appearance, along with the rest of J pod on Mother’s Day weekend. We were there and saw Granny still doing her thing, looking good and traveling with L-87, Oynx. L-87 split from L pod about three or four years ago and has been at Granny’s side ever since. Some think L-87 might be the late Ruffles, J-1’s offspring. If you look at L-87’s dorsal fin it looks similar to Ruffles fin, with a wavy trailing edge to the six foot high fin, a very cool sight!

As we go into our 2014 season we are hoping for a very strong salmon run, happy whales and lots of sightings around the islands.