J Pod in Haro Strait

Today we spent time with the Southern Resident Killer Whales, specifically J Pod. We started out seeing J22 Oreo with her beauty marks on the left eye patch. Her son was close by, J38 Cookie. He is growing bigger every time I see him.

There were a couple others near by I did not ID but we then wandered over to another group seeing T31 Tsuchi with her year old calf T56 Tofino. Tofino got her name because she was first observed near Tofino BC on the west coast of Vancouver Island.

We also saw J26 Mike, named after Mike Bigg. He was a Canadian marine biologist who came up with the plan to photo ID the killer whales. His collegues said he was nuts but today, that is exactly what we do. We know individual whales by their photo ID.

It was the most wonderful February day on the water I can remember, aside from a tour a couple years ago with a group of transient killer whales where I have a video of that experience on my website which was also a February day but a very cold one.