August 24th: A total of 57 Bigg's orcas in the central Salish Sea
August has been hopping for Bigg's killer whales sightings in the Salish Sea, and before we provide you with our regular monthly update in early September we wanted to give you an example of how a single day might play out! This example is August 24th, when we had 12 different groups of Bigg's in the central Salish Sea alone totaling at least 57 animals.
This time of year, it takes a lot to keep track of the chaos! The first reports started coming in before 7 AM continued until 8 PM, but it wasn't until 48 hours later that we were able to finalize reports for the day, based on photos received after the fact to help confirm IDs. The one remaining UnID report (blue star on the map) was a lone bull, confirmed to be a Bigg's but an unknown individual. Based on reports days before and after, it was probably either T124C or T69E.
The red dots indicate the first sighting location for each group; these are the dots you will see on the monthly map indicating the initial location for each unique group on this unique day. The arrows indicate where each group traveled throughout the course of the day, ending where the last report came in. In some cases, we only got a single report of a specific group, but other groups were tracked for up to 10 hours.
Obviously, no one person could see or track all of this - this is why we call it community science. It takes a transboundary network of individuals and groups both on shore and on the water willing to share information for this type of information to be pulled together. At least dozens of individuals contribute every month, and hundreds every year.
We'd like to take this moment to acknowledge some of the organizations that contribute the most to our Salish Sea orca tracking: the Pacific Whale Watch Association, Orca Network, and a whole host of regional sightings pages including but not limited to Whale Sightings in the San Juan Islands, Gabriola Island Whale Sightings, Nanoose Whale Watch, Sunshine Coast Whale and Dolphin Sightings, Howe Sound (Átl'ka7tsem) and Vancouver Whales and Cetaceans, and Campbell River Whale Spotters. Many other groups and individuals also contribute data on a smaller scale.
Hopefully this gives you a glimpse into the time, effort, and community engagement it takes to track killer whale sightings on a daily basis and pull together the monthly maps that we all enjoy. You can view past monthly and annual Salish Sea sightings maps and find our map FAQ page HERE
