Killer Whales (Orcinus orca) in Victoria Inner Harbour

Posted to the LEO Network by Tom Okey on behalf of Robert Bateman, with permission.

The nature artist Robert Bateman posted this observation to Twitter:

Spotted from our windows this afternoon, a pod of orcas in the inner harbour! You never know what you will see from our windows. #natureismagic #robertbateman #natureforall pic.twitter.com/UWLucvuBf8

— Robert Bateman (@batemancentre) June 7, 2018

The follow-up Twitter discussion also contained valuable observations:

Robert Bateman: We have never seen it in our time downtown! It was magical.

Mom2Queen: ...I wonder if they came in the harbour looking for food.

Robert Bateman: We wondered the same thing. Another theory is something spooked them and in order to protect the baby, they came into sheltered waters.

Trent Peek: ...I have never seen them in the Inner Harbour before.

Glen G. Wootton: ...We have seen whales in Burrard Inlet in recent years...

Alexander P. Matwick: A similar occurrence in Nanaimo Harbor last year, except it was chasing seals.

Tom Okey, BC coordinator of the LEO Network, wrote:

By all accounts, it is highly unusual for Killer Whales (Orcinus orca) to enter the inner harbour of Victoria, British Columbia. If these killer whales are seeking food, for example due to declines in Chinook salmon (Ward et al. 2009, Williams et al. 2011), it is possible that they would be exposed to higher concentrations of bio-available contaminants from the food web transport of contaminants from Victoria Harbour sediment and biota. Victoria Harbour has the highest concentrations of many harmful pollutants in all of British Columbia, as highlighted by PollutionTracker.

PollutionTracker data can be overlaid with LEO observations to examine such potential exposures and potential relationships between observable biota and measured concentrations of contaminants.

Literature Cited

Ward, E.J., Holmes, E.E. and Balcomb, K.C., 2009. Quantifying the effects of prey abundance on killer whale reproduction. Journal of Applied Ecology, 46(3), pp.632-640.

Williams, R., Krkošek, M., Ashe, E., Branch, T.A., Clark, S., Hammond, P.S., Hoyt, E., Noren, D.P., Rosen, D. and Winship, A., 2011. Competing conservation objectives for predators and prey: estimating killer whale prey requirements for Chinook salmon. PloS one, 6(11), p.e26738.

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