Southern Resident KELȽOLEMEĆEN and ḰENES

September 23, 2025

Possible newest addition tucked beside mom.

On September 23 we received notification of the Southern Residents heading south off of Gabriola Island near Nanaimo and set out to locate them. On our way, we encountered 6 humpbacks whales in the strait of georgia, some of these the same whales we saw the day before, with a couple additions. These whales were not identified as we observed them approximately 7km away. We left the humpbacks and continued north up the side of Galiano and came across SRKW near Cook Cove. Promptly we cut our engines, deployed our hydrophone, and set ourselves up to collect photo identification and video. The whales were vocalizing loudly, travelling quickly with little surface activity, and very spread out. When all of J pod passed us, we packed up our gear and slowly travelled behind them until they reached active pass, and then we left them to be as we headed south through Active pass and the whales continued in the Strait of Georgia. We attempted to hail two vessels to alert them of the whales’ presence, and to our pleasure saw a large group of people watching the whales from the shore of Galiano Island.

All photos are taken with a 200-600 zoom lens.