Whales of British Columbia
We design our wilderness
adventures to provide you with the best whale encounters imaginable in British
Columbia. The coastlines of Canada's West Coast, Inside Passage and northern Vancouver Island are
world-renowned for sea kayaking and watching killer whales. Your guides will
give entertaining, informative presentations on whale natural history. They can
show you how to tell one species of whale from another by the size and shape of
its spout. Trips also carry an extensive library with books on whales and a hydrophone to hear whales underwater.
Here are the most common
whales you will likely see on your tour with Sea Kayak Adventures.
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Orca (Killer
Whale)
Orcinus orca
July through Sept
look for northern resident, salmon-eating orcas in the waters of Johnstone Strait, Wilderness Islands
and God's Pocket Resort off northeastern Vancouver Island. |
Johnstone Strait (nearest points to this roadless area is Port McNeill and
Telegraph Cove) is the
single best place in the world to observe wild orcas (known as killer whales for their
voracious consumption of fish). These sleek ebony and ivory mammals with their
huge dorsal fins congregate here every summer to feed in the salmon-rich
waters. The trip highlight is viewing orcas from the comfort of a stable kayak
and listening to their vocalizations from our hydrophone. Words cannot describe
the excitement and beauty you'll feel watching a powerful but gentle orca whale
as its six-foot dorsal fin pierces the water's surface. Our experienced guides
will focus on maximizing your opportunities for observing orcas and sharing
their knowledge of whale behavior.
- A family of orcas is known as a pod and consists of a
mother and all her offspring. Orcas stay with their mother for life and have a
complex matriarchal social structure. Males mate with females from other pods,
then return to their mother.
- An adult orca can grow to 32 feet in length and weigh
9 tons. Adult males can sport dorsal fins of up to 6 feet. Females live up to
80 years and pass down knowledge to younger generations while the males live up
to only 30 years.
- There are three distinct races of orcas - residents,
transients and offshores. Seventeen different pods of northern resident orcas,
consisting of about 220 whales, inhabit the area where we kayak. An odontocete,
or toothed whale, resident orcas tend to feed primarily on salmon. Transients
will feed on seals, porpoises and even large baleen whales. There are no
documented cases of killer whales attacking a human in the wild.
- Orcas have the ability to produce vocalization calls
and whistles to communicate with each other. They are the only animals other
than humans known to have dialects in their language. There are three clans
with distinct dialects among the northern residents: the "G" clan sound like
donkeys, the "R" clan sound like pigs and the "I" clan whistles.
- BC Canada was the first to set aside a preserve specifically for orcas - the Robson Bight Orca Preserve in the roadless area of the inside passage east of
Telegraph Cove. This area is famous for pebble "rubbing" beaches the orcas love to rub their bellies on.
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Humpback Whale
Megaptera
novaeangliae
Humpback whales are
active, acrobatic whales. They can throw themselves completely out of the water
(breaching), and swim on their backs with both flippers in the air. Whaling
dramatically reduced humpback numbers in the first half of the 20th century. At
present they number about 30,000 globally and they have recently returned to
our area. See these magnificent creatures on our Johnstone Strait, Wilderness
Islands and God's Pocket Resort trips. |
- Humpback whales follow a regular migration route,
summering in temperature and polar waters for feeding, and wintering in
tropical waters for mating and calving.
- An adult humpback can grow to 50 feet in length and
weigh 40 tons. Like other rorquals, they have ventral pleats running from the
tip of the lower jaw back to the belly area, and a small dorsal fin on their
back. Its flippers are very long, up to 1/3 the length of its body. The flukes
(tail) can be 18 feet wide. The shape and color pattern on the whale's fluke is
distinctive to each whale. It can have 45 kilos of organic matter (barnacles
and whale lice) growing on its body.
- Humpbacks are baleen whales, having no teeth, but
having instead a series of fringed overlapping plates hanging from each side of
the upper jaw. Baleen consists of the same material as your fingernails
(keratin) and was the "whalebone" used in 19th century corsets. The whales use
the baleen to filter feed on tiny shrimp-like crustaceans (krill) and small
fish. Each whale will eat up to 3000 pounds of food a day.
- Only the males sing and only in southern waters
(Hawaii). They can sing for 20 minutes making different sounds.
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