woensdag 13 februari 2008

13 February 2008, Orca Network reports:

7:15 am spotted one solitary Orca off Stanley point on Pender Island just inside the mouth of navy channel.
Andy Paige
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In regards to a lone orca sighted on the morning of Feb 13th, thought I might be able to provide a bit more info: I was catching the first Swartz Bay to Tsawassen ferry and at around 8am the captain announced killer whales in the area. I went out on the deck and spotted a lone orca that appeared to be foraging in the area between the southern entrance to Active Pass, Prevost Island and Mayne Island. From my observation the orca had quite a tall erect dorsal fin, slightly wavy with a rounded tip. I am certain the dorsal fin had a slight "waviness" to it and was definitely a rounded tip. I'm only an amateur at identification but this fin certainly displayed the characteristics of a resident fin, and I'm pretty sure it was not a transient. On my time at Beam Reach last fall we often witnessed (as I'm sure you all have), J1 leading the pod by what seems to be up to a couple of miles. So I was thinking that perhaps this lone individual orca could have been J1, as I have seen J1 quite a few times and from the distance of my observation 200-300m, it did appear to look similar to Ruffles. I did look around for other fins but by this time the ferry had turned up Active Pass so I did not see any. Having said all this, this lone orca could have in fact been a transient but I thought that transients had very distinct triangular dorsal fins with a prominent "sharp tip". Anyone have any thoughts on this? Cheers,
Tim Hunt (former Beam Reach student & aspiring to work in Vic whale watch industry this season)
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More info. on the Pender Island orca Sighting: The Orca was well into the channel heading east close to shore just off susan pt. Its the first time I've seen one this close here - I normally see them across the channel off dinner pt. on mayne headed towards active pass.
Andy Paige

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