May 2022

Here's a look at the May 2022 killer whale sightings throughout the Salish Sea, and in short, they were everywhere! Each one of these dots represents a unique sighting on a unique day, and we had more than 200 orca reports throughout the month!

For the second year in a row we had confirmed presence of Bigg's killer whales every day of May, with more than 120 members of the population utilizing the Salish Sea during the month. Many "regular" family groups had prolonged visits, such as the T34s, T37, and T37Bs; T36 and T36Bs; T65As; T124As; and T137s. Some more uncommon visitors showed up as well including the T64Bs and T109Cs.

And how awesome is it to see those blue dots representing Southern Resident killer whales show up again on a May map?! This was only the second month of May in the last five years the Southern Residents (J-Pod) made a visit, and they were here for the last 8 days of the month, more days than they've been here in May since 2017. They spent a lot of time doing the classic "west side shuffle" off San Juan Island and made a couple of circuits up towards the Strait of Georgia as well.

We're well ahead on year-to-date sightings for both ecotypes compared to 2021, so we can't wait to see what the month of June has in store.