Today Captain Gabe and I had quite the experience on the ol' Hawk.
We boarded an excited crowd in Roche Harbor, and we were eager ourselves to get out and see some of the incredible wildlife that the San Juan Islands have to offer. Earlier in the day, we watched as the Southern Resident Killer Whales headed North to feed on salmon in the Fraser River and were now out of our range. However, Captain Gabe had another trick up his sleeve: Transients.
Unlike their fish-eating cousins the Resident orcas, Transient orcas truly earn the name "Killer Whale". These nomadic dolphins roam the waters from Southern California all the way up to Alaska hunting and eating warm blooded marine mammals including seals (their favorite), sea lions, porpoises, dolphins, and even large baleen whales like humpbacks and blues. Today we were hoping to watch them work.
As we left Roche Harbor and headed North towards Turn Point, we began scanning the waters for anything tall, black and pointy and before long we began seeing blows. Soon enough we were getting great looks at two small families, or pods, of transient orcas, each with a young calf that was no more than a year or two old. These miniature predators were traveling close behind their mothers, indicating that they were still nursing.
In the same area of the Haro Strait we saw a few harbor porpoise and began to anticipate the worst for this menu item of the orcas. The pod began to veer toward these small cetaceans and silently disappeared beneath the colorful surface of the Salish Sea. After about ten minutes of anticipation, the orcas surfaced with a splash! We made our way over as they began to circle and dive to feed on the recently deceased porpoise. When these whales are feeding on a "kill" that is underwater we often see them surface at an angle in order to circle around for seconds. Eventually this pattern begins to bear resemblance to very macabre flower petals.
After a few more minutes of feeding, they were on the chase again. This time, the victim was a juvenile harbor seal caught up in the action. Harbor seals, despite their reputation as "orca bait", are extremely agile in the water and can turn on a dime. This maybe one hundred-pound pinniped (Seals, sea lions and Walruses) looked like an ant surrounded by these twenty-five to thirty foot apex predators. While the orcas circled and splashed, attempting to grab the nimble seal, it used its speed to its advantage and rushed towards the closest safe haven around: the stern of a nearby boat! While the seal caught its breath sheltered behind the outboard motors the massive orcas surfaced nearby and circled the offending boat, waiting for their quarry to re-enter the water. After fifteen minutes of tense waiting to see what would happen the orcas finally gave up and slipped away to the South down Haro Strait, hopefully to more successful hunting grounds. The threat gone, the seal finally wriggled its body off the boat back into the water; definitely a valuable lesson learned about large black-and-white marine mammals.
As the spectacle wound down, we found ourselves pondering the entire situation: did the young, naive seal REALLY outsmart the worlds most intelligent marine predator? Perhaps this exercise was a training lesson for the two youngsters in how to corner their prey, and they decided not to pursue the seal after it reached safety. Perhaps the seal really did get lucky and narrowly escape the literal jaws of death? Either way, some of our younger passengers were thrilled that the seal lived to see another day.
As usual, our time with the whales seemed much too short and we eventually left them to their afternoon hunting while we made our way back to Mosquito Pass towards Roche Harbor. Along the way we saw a few more porpoises that were happily oblivious to the danger in the waters along with some common murres while some of us swapped stories and talked about the wonders of the ocean and our unforgettable experience.
Another Whale of a Day in the San Juan Islands!
Naturalist Mike J
M/V Seahawk