San Juan Whale Watching

Well, once again JPod has decided to divide and conquer when it comes to hunting salmon.

Yesterday we had the J11’s, J22’s, and L26’s, and today we had the rest of J’s (yesterday’s whales are up north where todays whales were yesterday–got it?) Whales were quite spread out off False Bay, and were slowly foraging towards Lime Kiln. It was a classic day however for observing whale behaviors—you could practically use a checklist: tail lob (check), pec slap (check), spy hop (check x 3), vocalizations (classic J calls, check), upside down swimming (check), breaches (check x 3 as well).

First we observed J2 and J1 traveling along with L57, and the rest of the gang. After watching them a bit, we decided to head over to the other group (J16, J26, and I think J33), and observed the “poop sniffers” training Tucker the wonder dog to find scat in the water. Our passengers were quite interested to learn how this collection can yield so much information on the health of the whales as well as giving more clues to what their diet consists of at this point (important considering the current state of the chinook salmon runs!) The 3 “w’s” were once again cooperating (whales, weather, and water). A very fine day for an incredible whale experience.

John Boyd (JB), Marine Naturalist, Western Prince