Wednesday 8 August 2018

Killer Whales come for a visit


  Steve and son Justin get some quality time fishing .  This year it is for two days, so we go south  for the first day .  The fishing and the weather are just fine ,  
 A remarkable experience today .  A pod of Killer Whales swam directly to the concentration of sport fishing boats and then mingled among the boats.   We are in wide open deep water off of the shelf beyond the shoal south of Quadra Island , which makes plain that the big animals have come to play around the boats .  They checked out the boats for twenty minutes or so, and then moved along to the east . 
   

There is a new regulation which doubles the approach zone of 100 metres to  200 metres ( about 200 yards ) when viewing Killer Whales . But what if they come to us ?   Maybe I shouldn't show these photos , especially the close up of one emerging right beside my boat .   I have seen this sort of thing many times over the years and it always is amazing how they come in close and never, ever, touch anybody's downrigger line , or fishing line .  




 There is a lot of concern and controversy about these animals recently , especially the Southern Resident Killer Whales , SRKWs .  The SRKW territory is primarily from about here south all the way to California ,and primarily seen in summer around the south end of Vancouver Island and Washington state .  The  American influence is to call them Killer Whales again, rather than Orcas . 

 For more understanding about this topic see this link to presentation by Dr. Andrew Trites , head of Marine Mammal Research at the University of BC .  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UwzlxBEmJ8&feature=youtu.be . 


 



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