A scientist who set off with a group of tourists on a whale watching tour in the Salish Sea was thrilled by a rare sight last Tuesday – a humpback whale follows and then faces a pod of killer whales.
American naturalist Olivia Esqueda witnessed the Georgia Strait conflict and said she had never seen anything like it.
“The humpback whale was somehow dragging behind them,” she said. “Suddenly we saw the next surface with a hunchback right in the middle of all the killer whales.”
For her, the experience of a whale watching trip from Washington Harbor to Washington is something she will never forget.
“Something is happening before us that has not been seen before,” she told CHEK News. “It’s hard not to be like a kid at Disneyworld.”
It all happened aboard a whale watching boat on the San Juan Safaris off the coast of Vancouver Island.
WATCH The meeting of a humpback whale with Salish Seas killer whales excites the spectators
The meeting of a humpback whale with Salish Seas killer whales excites the spectators
A scientist with a group of tourists on a whale watching tour at sea Salish was thrilled by a rare sight on April 12 – a humpback whale that appears to be harassing a pod of transitional killer whales. Katie Doherty / CHEK News. 1:00 p.m.
The incident is not the only recent conflict off the coast of British Columbia between killer whales and humpback whales. On March 9, a Tofino whale tour operator filmed the opposite and more common scenario in which a pod of transitional killer whales – also known as Big Killer Whales – attacked a young humpback whale.
Filming such encounters in the wild is unusual, experienced whale observers have agreed.
“Without exaggeration, I’ve never seen this before,” said San Juan boat captain Brian Goodtremont in a video taken by Esqueda during the meeting. “I’ve been doing this for 22 years.”
Victoria’s whale watching leader Mark Maleson, skipper of Prince of Whales Whale Watching, agreed.
A pod of a transitional killer whale, also known as the Big Killer Whale, spotted an out-of-frame humpback whale on April 12 in the Salish Sea off Vancouver Island. (Ellie Sawyer / Maya’s Legacy Tours)
He said the particular humpback whale was known to whale watchers and believed that the scars on the whale’s fin were probably from an earlier conflict with killer whales at an early age.
“When he was in his first year, he had a close conversation,” he told CHEK News. “It would have happened when he was with his mother.”
Marine tensions between the two species have been widely reported, according to a 2016 study by National Marine Fisheries Service researcher Robert Pittman.
He reviewed more than 100 similar conflicts reported by scientists, nearly six of which were started from one or more backs, often what he calls “mobbing behavior” to save other marine mammals that killer whales are trying to to hunt.
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