July 2026
July was a record-breaking month, but this time perhaps not in the ways that we would have hoped!
There were no Southern Resident killer whale visits to the Salish Sea. In several recent years their days present in July was <5, but this is the first time they didn’t come in at all. This fills in “the gap”, so to speak, as over the last decade plus there have been zeroes in April, May and June as well as August.
Our consecutive days present streak for Bigg’s killer whales was broken – in the middle of the summer! Despite setting an overall record for number of Bigg’s sightings in the month of July, try as we might we could not confirm their presence on the 19th, ending a run of 148 days of confirmed Bigg’s in 2026. Last year’s streak was over 320 days long!
With the “missing” Bigg’s on July 19th, this also marked the first July since 2018 where we weren’t able to confirm presence of our mammal-eating killer whales in the Salish Sea every single day of the month.
Despite all of that, there were still some highlights. The T35As (with T38As) returned to the Salish Sea for the first time in 2026 with not one but two new calves in tow! It took some real photo sleuthing to suss this out, and Bay Cetology has since designated the calves T35A5 and T35A1A. Sadly, part of the confusion came from the older calf being initially mistaken by many of us for T35A4, who was not present. Even the eyepatches are nearly identical!
There were also some interesting sibling dispersals! T38C was here with his younger sister T38F, and brothers T77C and T77E were also roaming the Salish Sea separate from their mom and sister. A third pair of siblings – T30A and T30C – were also here, though they’re a more expected duo who have continued to travel together after the death of their mother.
Finally, we did log our first Northern Resident killer whale reports of the summer in the far northern reaches of the Salish Sea. Unlike in recent years it wasn’t the A42s but rather the A25s who made a brief appearance! We haven’t been explicitly tracking NRKW in the Salish Sea for as long, but their 2 days present was their lowest we’ve logged for July, with other years ranging from 12-20 days present.
Should we make a few predictions for August? I never thought I’d say it, but the way this summer is going, I wonder if we’ll pass another full month without any Southern Residents here. Perhaps we’ll see a similar drought in Northern Resident presence in the Strait of Georgia, with a continuation of no A42s off Campbell River? Even if there are no resident killer whales in the Salish Sea, there will no doubt still be plenty of orcas around. I think we might go the other way for Bigg’s and set another sightings record for the month of August, including perhaps the return of the T19s, T36As, T46s, and T137s proper (all absent from the Salish Sea since June). We shall see!
