Butchart Gardens Seal Cull

Butchart Gardens Back Door Blood Boil

I titled this post-Butchart Gardens Seal Cull, which may not make a lot of sense but it is because we were knocking on their back door today. In several of the photos, you can see either a blood boil or big chunks of seal meat from the five seal kills we saw today.

I include a screenshot of where Butchart Gardens is and the bay we were in on the first tour. The second tour of the lighting was just the opposite. We had sunlight on the whales on the morning tour and backlit on the second tour. I don’t typically care for backlit shots because you lose much of the detail and the whites of the whales. However, a backlit blow is pretty impressive.

The whales were in close to people on the beach several times and showed they are captivating no matter where you are when you see them.

T65A2 Is Not Present

This pod should be six killer whales, but in the last couple of months, it has been five whales much more than it has been six whales. The Matriarch is T65A; she has a scallop or divot missing from the top back part of her dorsal fin. T65A2 has been the missing party for much of the past few weeks. He is a fifteen-year-old male. He has been spending time with his aunt and cousins, which are known as the T65Bs.

T65A3 is 12 years old and has a taller dorsal fin. T65A4 is an 8-year-old juvenile female with a little nick midway on her dorsal fin. T65A5 is a 5-year-old juvenile male, and the youngest of the pod is T65A6 is a 1-year-old calf.
We saw Harbor Seals in passing on the way to and from the whales. I had a long ride to get to them, so we did not stop and do our usual sharing about other critters in the Salish Sea. I shared on the way but did not stop. We did, however, see five seal kills throughout the day.

Canadian Bald Eagles

I stopped briefly to share the Canadian Bald Eagles with my guests. Fortunately, it was a calm water day, and I just had to slow down for tidal roll and wakes. We have seen this pod quite a bit lately. The last time I was in Saanich Inlet was with the T46B’s, and they went ALL THE WAY to the end. Today though was a pretty impressive Butchart Gardens Seal Cull of five that I saw and others that I did not see. They were a killing team today living up to their namesake.