June 2021

Here is your June 2021 map of killer whale sightings in the Salish Sea!

Before K-Pod's brief return on July 1, the only nearby report of Southern Residents was technically just outside the Salish Sea near Swiftsure Bank where Mark Malleson of the Center for Whale Research encountered members of L-Pod on June 7. This means the Southern Residents set some more dismal records in the spring of 2021, including:

Third May on record without Southern Residents in the Salish Sea (2018, 2020, 2021)Second June on record without Southern Residents in the Salish Sea (2019, 2021)First time no Southern Residents here in May OR June of the same year.

It ended up being 81 consecutive days without them here, and the quick visit by K-Pod simply served to "reset the clock" as they were in and out in just 24 hours, apparently not finding enough fish here to entice them to stay.

Meanwhile, the abundance of Bigg's continued to "paint the sea red", both on our map and as they devoured other marine mammals on their travels. We've gone more than a hundred consecutive days and counting with Bigg's killer whales confirmed present at least somewhere in the Salish Sea, with many days in June seeing groups present in more than half a dozen different areas totaling anywhere from 30 to over 50 individual whales. We still have to crunch the numbers but I wouldn't be at all surprised if this was a record June in terms of number of Bigg's sightings.

These maps are reaching a wider audience each month and that warrants a note that they are only possible because of you and your reports. OBI strongly believes in the value of citizen science and these maps are a perfect example of what can be done when people are willing to share sightings, photographs, and data. We see only a small fraction of these whales ourselves but are able to confirm their presence in all these locations thanks to the work of Orca Network, reports from all the captains and naturalists in the Pacific Whale Watch Association, as well as all the regional sightings pages on Facebook where people like you report what you see on the water or from the shoreline. We love visualizing the data this way and we hope you enjoy these monthly updates, too!