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A very brief sighting in the channel. They were elusive and far away from where I was on shore. As I was sitting on a beach at Fish Creek, I observed two orcas far off in the distance near Fritz Cove. They were well over one mile away from me. You can see both of them in this photo.
We took a quick trip in our boat to Taku Inlet and spotted a pod of orcas just outside of the Gastineau Channel in Stephens Passage near Douglas Island. There were five individuals in the pod. I believe one of the individuals may have been T037A. I am waiting to hear back from happywhale.com for IDs. Happywhale.com confirmed that these were some of the T037s. Individuals have been identified. Early afternoon I received information from a friend that there was a pod of orcas in the channel. I spent an hour or so looking for them but ended up having to leave. Later in the afternoon I was informed that the pod was still in the channel heading north. After watching for several minutes, I found them. They continued to travel north then turned and headed south. There appeared to be eight or nine of them. It was getting dark when I saw them so my photos are very grainy. I was told that T038A, T075, and T075A were with the group that had been seen earlier in the day. I am not sure if any of these individuals are in my photos. From our deck I observed five or six orcas swimming south in the Gastineau Channel. I drove to Sheep Creek in the hopes of seeing them as they swam past, but I never did find them again. I believe the large male is T077A. Photos are highly cropped. I got looking through my old sightings and found that we saw T077A near Ketchikan on March 17, 2016. I thought he looked familiar! We went back out in our boat to see if the humpbacks were still near Shelter Island. As we neared the southern tip of Shelter Island, we spotted a small pod of orcas. The water was very rough, visibility was low, and the orcas were very elusive. There appeared to be three orcas; a mom and calf pair and another female or juvenile male. Due to the conditions we only saw them surface three times. The last time we saw them they were moving very quickly. One porpoised out of the water a couple of times. I believe they were in the process of hunting something. We left the area and entered Saginaw Channel where we eventually spotted six humpbacks. The visibility was too low to see very far. We were unable to get many photos. I spotted a pod of orcas while parked on the highway just north of Tee Harbor. The orcas were traveling south in Lynn Canal. There appeared to be six or seven whales. We spent a few hours in our boat and spotted a pod of orcas in Lynn Canal north of Berners Bay. The pod was spread out over a large area. They were moving fairly quickly making it difficult to get photos of individual whales. I believe this may have been AG pod (Alaska resident orcas). I have submitted photos to Happywhale.com for confirmation and am waiting to hear back from them. **Happywhale.com has confirmed that this is AG pod.** We also spotted two humpbacks while we were out. One was near the entrance of Berners Bay and the other was near the north end of Shelter Island. We did not have enough time to stop and get photos of the humpbacks. Long distant shots taken in awful weather. Two orcas were observed swimming south in the Gastineau Channel. The orcas have been identified as T087 and T072. |
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