May 21, 2023: T124As | Spieden Channel

May 23

Date: Sunday, May 21, 2023
Location: Spiden Channel, President Channel.
Weather: Partly Sunny, 61 degrees Fahrenheit with 15mph winds from S
Tide: Minus low tide to flood
Pods/Matrilines: T124As and T124A1
Total Whale Count: 6
Behaviors: Traveling, hunting
Boat Count: 9+ (3+ recreational boats, 6+ whale watch boats)

Members of the T124As surfacing together

It was a beautiful day and we met up with a friend who was here for the weekend to visit the Center for Whale Research. We sailed with Outer Island Excursions aboard the Blackfish IV out of Anacortes, WA. Upon leaving the city, the weather was chilly and rainy, but as we got into Anacortes the rain cleared and we ended up with a mostly sunny day and high winds.

Prior to setting sail, we had seen reports of a group of transient/Bigg’s killer whales in Penn Cove on the east side of Whidbey Island. The captain and crew had also been notified of another group of Ts to the north. Due to the wind causing difficult sailing conditions, the crew decided to go to the orcas to the north. After a choppy ride across Rosario Strait with the strong S and SW winds, we ducked in between the San Juan Islands, making our way up to Spieden Channel to find the T124As, and traveling with them T124A1, who is documented in the DFO Bigg’s ID guide as being a loan female.

When we arrived on scene there were a handful of whale watch boats on scene. The T124As appeared to be in travel mode moving quickly, they would disappear on a deep dive for several minutes and then resurface in a small group.

To limit the number of boats and disturbance around the orcas, our crew notified the passengers that we were going to be leaving the orcas to give other tours a turn to view the T124As and we went and viewed harbor seals hauled out on a rock, viewed a few bald eagle nests, and did a pass of Spieden Island which is famous for the imported exotic sheep and deer. One of the former owners of Spieden Island wanted to turn the island into a big-game hunting resort and imported exotic species of animals including Mouflon sheep (Croatia), Fallow deer (Europe), and Sika deer (Asia). When locals and residents from the other islands got wind of this endeavor they ultimately shut it down. The animals still remain on the island, and since then, the island has changed hands multiple times and was even once owned by one of the founders of Oakley Sunglasses.

As we passed Spieden Island there appeared to be no sheep or deer in sight, which is not uncommon on sunny and warm days. The animals tend to seek shade to keep cool. After the pass of Spieden Island, we joined back up with the T124As who had now made their way into President Channel, east of Spieden. They continued their behaviors of travel, and then quickly started exhibiting hunting behaviors with rapid directional changes, followed by gathering in a group with big arch dives, which we call the “death arch”, meaning the whales are going in for a kill. We aren’t clear on what they may have been hunting, but it was likely a harbor seal.

We watched for a few minutes before making the trek back to port. As we were leaving the scene, we got a whiff of something very sweet in the air, which we suspect may have been the recent kill. A very uncommon fact is that a freshly killed seal has a sweet smell like strawberry or watermelon.