Vancouver Island Whale Watch

06/06/2026

Have you ever missed a shot? Don't worry, even our experienced guides miss them too! 📸🌊🤬

06/05/2026

It's time for Whaley Fun Fact Friday! 🎉🐳

Videos by Hayleigh Hilbert.

06/04/2026

Our first sighting of the T002Cs for 2026!

We were lucky enough to see this pod for the first time of the year during our May 31st tour!

The pod consists of 5 members:

T002C Tasu ♀ (1989)
T002C1 Rocky ♂ (2002)
T002C3 Lucy ♀ (2011)
T002C5 Zippy/Guardian (2020)
T002C6 Yukon (2025)

To see photos from the day and learn about the trip, visit our recent sightings page through the link in our bio!

📸: Vanessa Vereschahen

06/03/2026

Meet the Cormorant! 🪽

Videos by Val Watson and Vanessa Vereschahen.

06/02/2026

It’s the Season for Feeding Humpbacks!

Humpback whales are truly remarkable migratory animals, travelling nearly 6,000 km between their breeding and calving grounds and their rich feeding areas, like here in the Salish Sea. During this long journey, food is scarce, meaning they rely almost entirely on the fat reserves they built up during the productive summer feeding season.

By the time they arrive back in our waters, they are focused on one thing: feeding as much as possible.

Most of this feeding activity happens below the surface. Humpbacks will dive anywhere from 100 to 200 metres in search of dense patches of krill and small schooling fish. While these deep feeding events often go unseen, they are happening constantly beneath the surface.

Every so often, however, we’re treated to surface feeding behaviour like the moment captured here with Graphite.

The feeding technique, whether above or below the surface, is largely the same. A humpback will lunge forward with its mouth wide open, engulfing massive volumes of water and prey. It then filters the water back out through the 400 to 600 baleen plates that hang from the roof of its mouth, trapping food inside.

Over the course of a single day, a humpback can spend up to 20 hours feeding, consuming as much as 3,000 pounds of food. It’s an incredible intake that allows them to rebuild the massive fat reserves needed to sustain their long migrations and periods away from feeding grounds.

We are always grateful to welcome these “hungry hungry humpbacks” back into our waters each season and to spend time observing them as they feed, travel, and go about their lives in the Salish Sea.

Thanks to Marine Naturalist Evan Hessels for these great photos of Calypso and Wolf Eel feeding!

05/31/2026

Salish Sea's Stinky Steve is sticking his tongue out at San Francisco's Chonkers! Steve thinks he has a few pounds on him! 😜

Video by Jordan Robinson.

05/30/2026

Lunch time looks a bit different for orca 🍽️

On May 23rd, the T124A1s and T124A2s were seen hunting for their next meal! These shots of T124A2 Elkugu feature their prey, a Harbour Porpoise, zipping by ahead of her.

Check out our Recent Sightings blog below for more photos from the trip!

📸: Jordan Robinson

The T124A1s and T124A2s have lunch - today it was a Harbour Porpoise! Afterwards, we find a dozen humpbacks, including Cirque’s 2024 calf, Xpialidocious, Ghost’s 2025 calf, Kelpie, Neptune, Pyramid/Monarch/Kraken, Wiggins, Hendrix, and Blizzard!

05/29/2026

Have you ever wondered how we know when orcas have successfully hunted while we’re out on the water?

The truth is, it’s not always obvious.

Some hunts are easy to identify; you might see clear surface activity, tight group coordination, and sometimes even parts of the prey after the fact. This image shows one of the more unmistakable signs: a piece of intestine draped over the dorsal fin of T101A Rush following a successful hunt.

But most of the time, it happens much more subtly.

Transient (Bigg’s) orca typically hunt beneath the surface, meaning the actual chase and capture are often completely hidden from view. From the surface, we might only notice small changes, slower travel, tighter group spacing, or a shift in direction. Occasionally, there may even be a faint metallic scent in the air, hinting at what’s just happened below the water.

To the untrained eye, these moments can look like ordinary behaviour. But for experienced Marine Naturalists, these subtle cues tell a much bigger story.

That’s where our onboard team comes in: helping interpret what’s happening in real time and turning each encounter into a deeper understanding of these incredible animals and their behaviour in the Salish Sea.

Thanks to Marine Naturalist Aly Kolhman for these great photos.

05/29/2026

What time is it?!

📹taken by Vanessa Vereschahen.