Glimpse of the Residents Leaving

A Glimpse of the Residents Leaving

My first tour was down in the Strait of Juan de Fuca with hopes of seeing J-Pod. I was able to recognize J26 Mike and knew we were with the J16s. However, we only had a glimpse of the Residents leaving US waters as they crossed over into Canada. We are not permitted to view the Southern Resident Killer Whales in Canadian waters. I zoomed in on my chart plotter, so I could see when I was 50 feet from the border and not cross over. We should have been able to view them longer, but just before we got there the whales changed course and headed west, right across the border.

A Humpback and an Elusive Minke

Since we could not watch them anymore, I took us back closer to San Juan Island where we viewed a Humpback Whale for a bit. Then I tried to view a Minke Whale but never did see it.

Knee Jerk Politics

I wonder what sense it makes to go with the logic that our vessel noise at 7 knots is supposed to cause harm. Yet the Canadian Navy does underwater ops and munitions exercises without regard to the whales. I do believe the noisy shipping, and military ops do interfere with whales feeding and even doing harm to them. Much of what has taken place in legislation is knee jerk emotion-based and not backed up by science. It is frustrating.

In the case of the Pender Island and Saturna Island, “no go zones,” they are supposedly for the protection of the Southern Resident Killer Whales. However, they are not anywhere near these two areas. I don’t think they made it to those areas in the past three days that J-Pod was here. It is purely a bunch of cliff dwelling rich folks who have bought off politicians and in essence extend the homeowners’ property rights a 1/4 mile out into the strait. No vessels of any kind are permitted in those waters now.

In today’s situation, there were two of us who stopped at the border and could no longer track the resident whales. That, in turn, means that law enforcement is not being advised by us where the whales are. Scientists are not hearing from us where they are. No one is there to flag down speeding boats to make them aware that whales are present. No one is there to collect evidence of whale harassment with pictures, notes, and metadata to turn over to WDFW and DFO Canada. There were 24 of us, owners, captains, and naturalists trained by a WDFW officer this past March on collecting evidence that can be used to cite violators?

An Evening with the T49As

This evening I had a private charter, and I headed north where the water conditions were better. We met up with the T49As. This pod is a family of six Orca. T49A is the matriarch, and T49A1 is the oldest son as a 19-year-old. The youngest is T49A5, a two-year-old calf.

We arrived as they were finishing off a seal or porpoise and the seagulls were diving for leftovers. We stayed as long as we could keeping in mind when it would be too dark to see logs in the water on our return trip to homeport.

On the way back I scanned for humpback whale blows but did not see any. A pretty nice day but I
wish we had had more than a glimpse of the Residents leaving US waters.