A family of orcas in Vancouver’s False Creek have sparked joy among the people who saw them.
It happened Sunday and was witnessed by Joanne Randle, who was travelling on False Creek Ferries, a small commuter service that transports people to and from Granville Island.
“All of a sudden, the captain announced that there were orcas ahead,” she recalled in an interview with Amy Bell, the guest host of CBC’s On the Coast. “There were only four of us on the boat; it was one of the old wooden ones, and all of us scrambled to the windows. They were only a few feet away … you could almost reach out and touch them.”
A video shared by Randle and False Creek Ferries shows whales cruising past highrise towers as the passengers gasp with delight.
People ferrying through False Creek Sunday were surprised by the sudden appearance of four orcas in the urban waterway. The killer whales are rarely seen so close to Vancouver.
The experience reminded Randle of her father, who died during a nap in 2013. She says one of the last things he did before lying down was watch a video she had sent him of orcas near Galiano Island.
“Apparently, he was under the impression that I had taken the video, and it brought him so much joy to watch it,” she said in an email to CBC News sharing the video.
Speaking with Bell, Randle choked up at the emotion of seeing the animals and the connection they bring.
“It somehow makes you feel very small and unimportant, and your problems melt away, and you just get into this other world when they’re around.”
Whales identified as mother with 3 offspring
Andrew Trites, director of the University of British Columbia’s marine mammal research unit, has identified the whales as a family group of transient orcas consisting of a mother and her three offspring.
Trites said the video shows the whales moving quietly like “ghosts” to avoid alerting their prey.
The larger orcas appear bigger than the diminutive ferry, which measures about 20 feet long.
“They’re on the hunt, and so they don’t want to make a big splash about it. They want to come in very stealthy-like, as though they weren’t even there,” said Trites.
“I’m sure there were hundreds of people walking along the seawall that day, and they didn’t even notice, and these people aboard the boat, they had a very special moment they will remember for the rest of their lives.”
He said it’s the first time the 26-year-old mother orca, known as T35A, has shown up in downtown Vancouver with her children, aged six, 11 and 14.
Sign of whale recovery: researcher
Trites said the well-documented family has previously been seen by marine researchers from Alaska to the Strait of Juan de Fuca south of Vancouver Island.
He attributes the pod’s surprising downtown appearance to seals also changing their habits as they hide from orcas, forcing killer whales to hunt in backwater areas like False Creek.
Killer whales have previously been spotted in False Creek, including in 2019, and in 2010, a grey whale swam all the way to the end of the inlet near Science World.
Trites said researchers are hearing more reports of killer whales being seen in places where they’ve never been seen before.
He said the behaviour captured on the video suggests the whales didn’t catch anything.
Trites said the sighting was an indication of the recovered health of the Salish Sea, saying it was “in a state that we haven’t seen it for over a century.”
He likened it to living next to Tanzania’s Serengeti National Park.
“It’s a very healthy, vibrant system … we’ve seen humpback whales come back. We’ve seen our seal numbers recover and stabilize,” he said.
“We see killer whales here every single day now, and when I first came to B.C., I hardly ever saw a seal, never saw killer whales in here, and it’s all changed.”
In 2021, the B.C. government estimated there were 206 “mature” transient orcas in the province’s coastal waters, while U.S. authorities have put the total population at about 350.
The species is designated as threatened, meaning they are likely to become endangered without interventions.
But Trites said the population was growing, in association with the recovery of prey species, such as the Steller sea lion.
As a marine researcher who has been through many encounters with killer whales, Trites said those aboard the ferry should feel privileged.
“They are magical experiences,” he said.
For more on the southern resident killer whales and the efforts to save them, listen to the CBC British Columbia original podcast Killers: J Pod On The Brink, hosted by Gloria Macarenko.