Amazing time on our staff trip with Ocean EcoVentures Whale Watching – Cowichan Bay. 11 hours on the water which included the T38A’s, T35A’s and approximately 50 Humpbacks!! Was absolutely insane to see huge groups of humpies in 10-15 ft. swell (and the furtherst West I have ever seen!) I have never seen such a huge aggregation before and that includes my time in Hawaii!!
We found the T38As and T35As early in the morning on our staff trip. They were just finishing up with feeding on a stellar sea lion.
A few of the kids were playing around after and this was a little fluke wave towards the boat!
Check out this Humpback known as BCZ0131. When it was first photographed it’s fluke looked like a normal whale but now looks more like an accordion. This is probably a result of being entangled at some point, which is a big threat to these 40 ton giants. Luckily this one survived and was one of the 40-50 Humpbacks we saw!!!
The resiliency of this whale is a good representation of the North Pacific population of Humpbacks. These whales were heavily hunted until the early 70’s when there population hit an all time low around 1400 individuals!!
Since being protected by both the United States and Canadian governments, these Humpbacks have bounced back and now the population is estimated between 22,000 and 24,000!
-Gary