We got a report of orcas and were hesitant to go check it out. Earlier in the day we had encountered J Pod, from the critically endangered Southern Resident killer whales. Because this population is struggling, we actively go out of our way to avoid them and based on the timing and location of the report, we were worried it was them once again.
Another whale watching company decided to check on the report and luckily it was Biggs/Transient Killer Whales instead!
When we arrived, we realized this was a T-Party! This is when multiple matrilines of Transient/Bigg’s Killer whales come together to socialize. While T-Parties are always fun to watch, there was something magical about this one. The 2 matrilines that were present were the T02C’s and the T123’s.
In 1970 T02 “Florencia” was captured along with her family including her daughter and son. Her daughter would live a life performing at several marine parks, dying young, but Florencia and her son would escape their holding nets. Florencia would go on to have T02C “Tasu”. In 1976 T046 “Wake” was part of the “Budd Inlet 6” where 6 Transient Killer Whales were captured for SeaWorld. While this was all done legally, the capture process was brutal and when people saw it they took Sea World to court and the whales won their freedom and Sea World lost it’s ability to capture orcas from the Pacific Northwest. Wake would go on to have 8 children and now has around 28 direct descendants!
This means that all the 9 orcas that we were seeing in this party wouldn’t even exist had the captivity industry taken those 2 females out of the water. As incredible as this already was, there was something different about this T-Party.
When we watch whales, the goal is to have the whales ignore us and continue exhibiting whatever behavior they were exhibiting before we got there and usually that’s exactly what happens, but not on this day. The
whales kept coming up to the boats, they would check out one boat then go to the next boat and circle back to the previous boat.
Sometimes they would circle a boat multiple times. There was nothing threatening about the behavior, but it really felt like they were including us in the party. At one point T02C1 “Rocky” breached towards the back of the boat giving me the picture of a lifetime.
He then breached sideways, so close I couldn’t fit his whole body into the frame. His eyes were completely open, looking at us.
Very rarely do I think orcas care that we are there, and rarer still do I think they try to include us.
In the countless hours I’ve spent with these incredible animals I can count on 1 hand the number of times I’ve felt like they were trying to socialize with us. It was truly a once in a lifetime experience.
-Aly
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