Lauren | M/V Kestrel | Saturday, June 21st, 2025 | 2:00 PM
The Coastal Bigg’s population is estimated to have around 380 to 400 individuals. Of these individuals, we see about 150 of them pretty frequently in the inter-islands of the Salish Sea. The rest of the population spends most of their time in southeast Alaska or on the west coast of Vancouver Island. As time goes on, some families change up their habits and will start frequenting different regions. My first season working with San Juan Safaris was back in 2021, and the T065A’s were the stars of that summer. They were one of the families I encountered most, and T065A2/Ooxjaa ended up becoming my favorite whale after I had several amazing encounters with him. Unfortunately for me, the last couple years the T065A’s have been spending less and less time around the San Juans. The Puget Sound has apparently become more their style as their sightings to the south have increased.
As you can imagine, I was over the moon finding out the T065A’s were found in the region today! Even more exciting was that T065A5/Indy a was reported to be traveling with them. Indy AKA “Mr. Indy-pendent” is an 11 year-old male Bigg’s Killer Whale, who is almost never seen traveling with his immediate family. The first reports that came in detailed that all 6 of the T065As were together, which I haven’t seen in years! By the time we got on scene, T065A3/Amir had already broken off. Although I was sad Amir was not with them, I couldn’t be more excited to get out on the water to see one of my favorite families!
The M/V Kestrel left Friday Harbor and headed south. Our first stop was to Goose Island to check out two different cormorant species, as well as several glaucous winged gulls. We then jetted over across cattle pass, aimed for Shark Reef. There we saw several hauled out harbor seals hanging out in the kelp beds. Next we headed further south to Whale Rocks to view Steller’s Sea Lions. After our wildlife stops we continued even further south into the Strait of Juan de Fuca aiming for Smith Island. After a short transit we made our way on scene as this family slowly headed west. These six whales would frequently split up in different groups with almost every surface. We got great looks at T065A2/Ooxjaa swimming by his lonesome.
Then we noticed T065A5/Indy and his sister T065A4/Ellifrit surfacing together. Mom and T065A6/Callisto were off as a duo as well. We got the opportunity to watch these whales for about an hour and not once did they all surface as one unit. Was Indy’s return to the family the reason why? It’s always fun to speculate what these reunions mean, if anything at all. Indy has recently been seen with a lot of scarring on his dorsal fin. I bet he had some wild stories to tell his siblings!