June 2022

Here is your June 2022 Salish Sea orca sightings map! It was another busy month for Bigg's killer whales, with confirmed presence of that ecotype every day of the month of June, often with multiple groups present. Some noteworthy occurrences included young T34A1 continuing to hop from group to group, new calves seen with both the T36As and T109As, and a continued visit from the T64Bs who are uncommon in the Salish Sea.

More than 120 different individuals Bigg's were documented in 139 unique sightings. (A sighting is a report of a unique group on a unique day.) While this is down slightly from June 2021, year to date, we are more than 150 sightings ahead of last year!

Meanwhile, the Southern Residents also bucked the trend of the last three years and were present for 11 days in June, the most since 2018. In fact, from 2019-2021, they were only here for a combined 2 days across the month of June!

J-Pod spent the most time here, but the L12 sub-group also made an appearance. The L12s, a group of L-Pod currently made up of 9 whales, used to be classic "westside shuffle" whales, spending much of the summer in Haro Strait, but in recent years they've become the Southern Residents least likely to visit the Salish Sea. They had not been seen in inland waters since a single day in January when they came down the inside passage and out the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

What will be in store for July? We fully expect to continue documenting Bigg's killer whales on a daily basis, and with some sporadic reports of Southern Residents out off the western Strait of Juan de Fuca coming in, we hope they will make another visit soon as well. Interestingly, we had Southern Residents here for more than 20 days of July in 2016, 2018, and 2020, and 7 or fewer days in 2017, 2019, and 2021. Will the even/odd year pattern hold up? So far it's not looking like it, but there's still more than three weeks left in the month!