July 5 Prince of Whales

Today was a bittersweet day on the Ledge. We saw a grand total of 8 fin whales and 2 humpback whales, but the 2 humpbacks were injured, and one of them was a fresh injury.

We began our day by seeing a couple of large fin whales not all that far offshore. We are still working on the ID's of these animals but based on their dorsal fins, we have seen them earlier this season.

Then we spotted a smaller blow. This was a young humpback whale we have been seeing quite a bit of this summer- a two year old whale that was born to Siphon back in 2009.

Siphon's 2009 calf swimming behind our boat

As we were watching this familiar whale, we noticed a new injury to its right side. The last time we saw the right side of this whale was less than 72 hours ago, so the injury is very new.

Dorsal fin of Siphon's 2009 calf showing a new fresh wound just below the fin

Close up of the new injury

This appears to be caused by a recent collision with a small boat, and we have been seeing several small boats in the area in the past few days making close approaches to this whale. Overall, the injury is small and minor and we will keep a close eye out for future sightings of this whale to monitor its condition.

We had another fin whale in the area with this young humpback. It was a great opportunity to see the contrast in size between humpback and fin whales!

On our way home, we saw a few more spouts. One of these came from the 14 year old female humpback whale named Fulcrum. Several years ago, a small boat ran right over the top of Fulcrum, mangling her dorsal fin and reducing it to just shards.

Fulcrum's damaged dorsal fin

Lucky for Fulcrum, the impact did not kill her and she appears to be doing fine, and even had another calf in 2009. Seeing whales injured due to human carelessness and ignorance frustrates me immensely as we at Blue Ocean Society work very hard to protect not only the whales but also their habitat through our research, educational and beach clean up programs. Other whale watch boats we work with have posted similar, recent events here on this blog over the past weekend, recanting stories about private boaters attempting to get as close as possible to feeding whales, putting themselves AND the whales at risk.

Humpback whale named Fulcrum diving

Fin whales seemed to be all around us throughout the afternoon. This one was circling quickly to catch some fish!

Fin whale spout

Fin whale chevron markings

I would like to thank all of our caring passengers who diligently watched these whales with awe and enthusiasm, and especially to our generous passengers who adopted whales today! Thank you! We couldn't do what we do without you!

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