Whale Watchers Report Easter weekend ‘Hopping’
White Orca ‘Tl-uk’ Among 56 Killer Whales Sighted Easter Weekend.
Rachael Dana Merrett, Orca Spirit Adventures/PWWA
“Chainsaw” Among 56 Killer Whales Sighted Easter Weekend.
Val Shore, Eagle Wing Tours/Shoreline Photography/PWWA
“Chainsaw” and White Orca “Tl’uk” Among 56 Killer Whales Sighted
FRIDAY HARBOR, WA and VICTORIA, BC (April 6, 2021) – The Pacific Whale Watch Association reports that the Easter weekend was a memorable one, with 56 killer whales spotted throughout the Salish Sea. Over the weekend, naturalists reported four different pods of Bigg's killer whales in the Strait of Georgia, Puget Sound, and San Juan Islands. J Pod, part of the salmon-eating Southern Resident killer whale population, were also seen this weekend.
At one point, naturalists reported pods of Bigg’s killer whales straddling the San Juan Islands in both President’s Channel and Haro Strait cruising north into Canada, Bigg’s killer whales along the south end of Lopez Island cruising east, along with a report of a small pod of the mammal-eating killer whales in south Puget Sound.
In addition to the presence of 32 Bigg’s sighted throughout the region Saturday, the Southern Resident Orcas of Jpod meandered slowly up the east coast of San Juan Island in what observers reported to be a resting pattern, swimming slowly in close social groups against the outgoing tide.
Making the weekend encounters even more special was the return of “Chainsaw” who made the headlines throughout the region last week due to his first appearance of the season in the Salish Sea. The distinctive male was sighted again Saturday traveling with his extended pod up Haro Strait, boundary waters between the US and Canada.
Also among the pods was another high-profile whale born in 2018 named “Tl’uk” who garnered a considerable amount of attention last fall when the whale was seen regularly traveling through Puget Sound and the San Juan Islands before being sighted in August 2020 along the shoreline of Kuiu and Kupreanof islands in Southeast Alaska. Due to his distinctive grey and white coloration the young whale has been named “Tl’uk” which translates to “moon” in the language of the indigenous Coast Salish people.
"It's a pretty fabulous day out there whenever we see whales,” says Val Shore, a professional naturalist and photographer with Eagle Wing Whale & Wildlife Tours of Victoria, “but to have multiple groups including two ‘celebrities’ (Tl’uk and Chainsaw) in the neighbourhood is an extra special treat. This is an awesome time of year to see Bigg's killer whales. I've been doing this for over 20 years and it never gets old.”
“It was a great first trip of the season for me,” says professional naturalist Rachael Dana Merrett of Orca Spirit Adventures in Victoria. “This is my twelfth season and it was an awesome way to get back out on the water, that’s for sure.”
According to researchers, the coastal Bigg's killer whale population numbered 349 individuals in 2018 and had been growing at roughly 4% per year through most of the 2010s. Over 200 Bigg's individuals are typically documented in the Salish Sea each year.
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Photos provided courtesy, photo credit mandatory:
Val Shore, Eagle Wing Tours/Shoreline Photography/PWWA
Rachael Dana Merrett, Orca Spirit Adventures/PWWA
Video (Dropbox link below) credit: Jeff Friedman, Maya’s Legacy Whale Watching/PWWA
https://www.dropbox.com/s/o5asd86o9ghtl1s/20210403.mp4?dl=0
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FUN FACTS ABOUT TL’UK:
What is the difference between albino and leucistic? Albinism is a condition in which there is an absence of melanin. Melanin is what is present in the skin and is what gives skin, feathers, hair and eyes their color. ... Leucism is only a partial loss of pigmentation, which can make the animal have white or patchily colored skin, hair, or feathers.
Tl'uk Visited Southeast Alaska Summer of 2020! Adding to his fame, Tl'uk and his pod traveled from Puget Sound to Southeast Alaska earlier this summer and were sighted off Petersburg, AK, August 6 to10, 2020. Tl'uk and his pod were then seen in the CampbellRiver area twelve days later on August 22, returning to theSalish Sea just days later. The distance between PetersburgAK and Seattle WA is over 775 nautical miles, one way!
Tl'uk is a Coast Salish word that means "Moon." Researchers nicknamed him Tl’uk,the Coast Salish word for “moon,” because of his lunar-like grayish-white color. He is a Bigg’s killer whale first spotted in November 2018.
Tl'uk is not the only white Killer whale: In 1970 a white Killer whale was captured in Pedder Bay, BC, and displayed at Sealand of the Pacific in Victoria BC. The white whale was named "Chimo" and lived at the seaside aquarium from 1970 until it's death in 1972.In April of 2020 a white Biggs mammal-eating killer whale was sighted off the coast of Monterey, California. The white orca whale, designated OCT050C1, is part of a matriline commonly sighted off the California coast.
