The month of March is often a favourite of ours, marked by the blooming of daffodils in our garden beds and the early pollinators which signify the coming of spring. This year was no different, with some wet and windy weather thrown in just for good measure!
A welcome piece of news from the Northern Resident orca community was a report of the A42s – Holly’s family – near the Discovery Islands (mid-Vancouver Island area) in early March. We had wondered where her family had gone since they were last reported in the same area in late January. We are fairly confident that they have remained here for the majority of the winter, and it is quite remarkable that they have managed to go undetected for such a long time, with only a handful of reports in several months. It speaks to the quietness and calm that can be found here in the cold dark months, compared to the busyness of the summer season. Holly’s family has favoured these waters in recent years, and it will surely be interesting to see whether this pattern from the A42s continues as Holly’s daughters begin to grow up and lead matrilines of their own.
On 17 March, we learned that Fife’s (A60’s) family – the A23s – had been seen further north around Klemtu. We don’t expect that they will travel south just yet, but we have been surprised before! There have been no updates of Bend (A72) or Simoom (A34) and their families this month; fairly typical for this time of year. One excitement we did have at the Lab was the brief but certain bout of G-clan calls at night on 17 March as a group of whales entered Blackfish Sound. They did not stay for long but, fortunately, the next day brought clarity as researcher Jared Towers was able to photograph the I12 and I13 matrilines tracking westbound past Alert Bay. To our knowledge, this is the first time that these families have come into this area in the early spring. To add to our delight, just a few days later, a group of 8+ Northern Residents were sighted at nearby Bere Point rubbing beach in the dwindling daylight on 20 March! Nobody could ascertain positive IDs from the few photos taken – but they were definitely not the I12 nor I13 whales that had been seen a few days earlier. Sometimes we have to accept that these early season visits may well remain a mystery in our records.
At the Lab on Hanson Island, our caretakers have been kept busy by a steady progression of Bigg’s orcas. Members of the T090s, T060s and T07s were all identified, with a few more acoustic events occurring overnight. The way we document and identify Bigg’s orcas has shifted over the past few years, with the creation of AI-assisted identification software ‘Finwave’, developed by local organization Bay Cetology. Given the different acoustic and behavioural traits of Bigg’s orcas – who often spend much less time at the surface and vocalizing – Finwave has been an incredibly useful tool for us to bolster our research efforts while contributing to an open dataset on Bigg’s and their coast-wide movements.
As ever, we await the summer with anticipation. Routine renovations to some of our structures are underway, and we’re slowly preparing the camp for arrival of volunteers and friends.
