July 2025

It’s hard to believe we’ve already passed the end of July, but it’s time for a look back at another month of killer whale sightings in the Salish Sea. As these sightings maps have grown in popularity, we tend to get many of the same questions on them each month, so let’s address those things first this time: there have been no updates on Brave Little Hunter, we believe in using the terms killer whale and orca interchangeably and don’t intend to change in that regard, and the dots on this map may not show where you specifically saw killer whales since they only represent the first sighting location for each unique group on a unique day. Learn more about all of these topics HERE

For Southern Residents, July is an unpredictable month in which their presence varies widely from year to year. Some years, they are present in the Salish Sea for the majority of the days of the month, and others, they are almost entirely absent. 2025 was one of the latter, with just 3 days of presence, which is the second lowest on record. J-Pod came in from July 14-16, did one lap up to the Fraser River and back, then departed again. Thanks to outer coast field work by the Center for Whale Research in early July, we did get an update on the whereabouts of the Southern Residents during the first week of the month, and it turns out they were all together in the Swiftsure Bank area. It’s a stark reminder that just because superpods aren’t happening here, it doesn’t mean they aren’t happening anywhere. With the entire Southern Resident community congregating out there for days if not weeks on end, we can only hope they’re finding an abundant source of fish to enjoy.

For Bigg’s killer whales, sightings were down a bit compared to July 2024, just the second month this year with a  downtick compared to the year prior. That isn’t to say sighting were low, however; in fact this was the 7th straight July on record with confirmed Bigg’s presence in the Salish Sea every single day of the month.  The first half of the month was bopping with 30-40 whales present every day in often 8 or 9 different groups per day. Mid-month we watched as one matriline after another went north and exited the region, including the T35As, T36s, T38As, T69s, T77s, T99s, and more. That left us with a very predictable end to July, with the same four groups present in almost the exact same place every day: the T101s in the northern Strait of Georgia, the T65Bs in the central Salish Sea, and the T65As and T137s in southern Puget Sound. Often in August, seemingly timed with the harbor seal weaning period in the San Juan Islands, we get another influx of Bigg’s matrilines returning, so we can’t wait to see how that plays out this year.

As has been the case in recent years, the A42s with A94 (a group of 8 whales of the Northern Resident Community) took up seasonal residence in July in the waters between Campbell River and Powell River. The returned to the area at the very end of June and stayed until the last week of July.

Shall we try another round of peerless prognostications for the month of August? Here goes nothing! (For context, Monika wrote these on July 31st)

• The Southern Residents will be present for half a dozen days or less
• We will see the return of the T18s, T34s/T37s, T60s, and T124Ds to the Salish Sea, none of which were seen here in July
• The A42s will return to the northern Salish Sea and spend more than half the month of August there