LEO Network

Victoria, British Columbia, Canada


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:

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.

.

Jackie Cowan took this photo of orcas in the Inner Harbour on Thursday, June 7, 2018.
Photograph By JACKIE COWAN

See Also

View on Map

Killer whale

Victoria Harbour (British Columbia)