January 2022

It's hard to believe it's already time for the first monthly sightings map of 2022, but here we are!

For the second year in a row, the A42s have made a late January visit to the Sunshine Coast and Howe Sound. This year they've hung around a bit longer, resulting in what must be a first, with confirmed Northern Resident days in the Salish Sea matching confirmed Southern Resident days for the month at 10.

We're trying something a little different this year with tracking Southern Residents however: speculated days in the Salish Sea. Especially this time of year, we know there are days the whales are here, but since they are not officially documented, we haven't counted them in the past. For instance, this year on January 9, J-Pod went north into the Strait of Georgia, and they came back down south on January 12. While they weren't seen on January 10 or 11, we can reasonably assume they were up the Strait of Georgia on these days too and just weren't seen. Using this speculated Salish Sea day metric, the number of day Southern Residents were here in January rises from the 10 confirmed days to 25 speculated days!

Meanwhile, you can see that with the lack of boats on the water this time of year, Bigg's killer whale reports have mostly come from shore, represented by a lot of red dots near the coastlines and not out in the middle of the straits. Despite sightings dropping off considerably compared to the end of last year, Bigg's have still set a January record of being confirmed present on 22 days in the month.