B.C. women get an up-close encounter with humpback whale off coast of Vancouver Island
The whale surfaced several times and Lauren Lan caught it all on video
An up-close visit from a humpback whale in B.C.'s Georgia Strait over the weekend made two women ecstatic — and a marine biologist hopeful that the mammal's population in the area continues to grow.
The massive whale surfaced Thursday right next to the small boat Lauren Lan and Sonja Schum were taking to a friend's cabin.
"It was really very cool to just look right beside the boat and see the whole length of the whale and see all the little barnacles up close," said Lan, a Comox, B.C., resident who caught the encounter on video.
Something like this never would have happened a decade ago, Andrew Trites, a professor at UBC's Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries. Humpbacks have been making a comeback after nearly disappearing from the area in the early 1900s.
"Had they been out there 10 years ago, they would never have seen this. The ocean would just look empty," he said.
Lan and Schum spotted the blowhole of the humpback whale in the distance on Thursday night. They decided to get a little closer, but then the whale dove out of sight.
"We just stopped where we were and just thought, well, we'll just wait," Lan told CBC News. "Sometimes they come up very far away, and sometimes they come up in the same spot."
"And then, about five minutes later, [it] came up right beside the boat," Lan said.
WATCH | The humpback whale gets close to the women's boat:
Lan's videos show the whale diving and resurfacing multiple times, blowing air and water vapour out of its blowhole and even smacking the surface of the water with its white flippers.
Lan, who's lived on Vancouver Island for more than a decade, said it was the first time she's ever been so close to a humpback whale.
"It was exciting to see it up close, but also slightly concerning because I have seen them breached before," she said. "I did not want him to do that with us above him."
Eventually, after quite a few minutes of the whale circling Lan's boat, she said she accidentally stepped on the bilge pump lever — used to remove water from the boat's surface. This caused a loud pop sound and the whale swam away.
Lan and Schum nicknamed the whale Stinky.
"I don't know how you would know this, you're never really that close, but humpback whales stink," she said, laughing.
Prof. Trites said whales have "really bad breath" as a result of their diet.
"In British Columbia, their primary prey are krill — like small shrimp — and it gets stuck on their baleen," he said. "It sort of rots a bit and ... when they breathe, often that smell is coming up in their breath."
The type of encounter Lan and Schum had is very rare, Trites said, adding they did the right thing to keep themselves and the whale safe by turning off the engine and keeping still.
Canada's Marine Mammal Regulations state that boaters should stay at least 100 metres away from whales. The North Island Marine Mammal Stewardship Association recommends boaters stay 200 metres away.
Trites said he couldn't tell the whale's sex from Lan's video, but that it had likely been hit by a motorboat before based on the cut marks near its back.
"Obviously this one has had some very close encounters before," he said. "It's probably a whale that comes back here regularly to feed."
"There's a good chance it's part of the Hawaiian population, although some of our humpbacks also come here from Mexico … it's got such distinct markings that I am certain it is a known individual."
The Marine Education Research Society (MERS), a conservation charity based in Port McNeill, about 460 kilometres northwest of Victoria, identified the whale as Raza (BCX1852), a male first seen in 2018. They said he's had "extreme scarring" from a propeller ever since he was first documented.
Adult humpback whales can grow up to 14 metres in length and weigh up to 34 tons, according to Trites.
Humpback populations have rebounded
Humpback whales were nearly wiped out in the Strait of Georgia after a whaling station was set up in Nanaimo, about 110 kilometres north of Victoria on Vancouver Island, in the early 1900s, Trites said. The mammals' return to the area is relatively recent.
John Calambokidis is a research biologist at Cascadia Research in Olympia, Wash., who has been monitoring whales along the west coast for 35 years. He said their numbers have increased more than tenfold, at an annual rate of about seven per cent.
He said the increase has been even greater in the Salish Sea, which includes the Georgia Strait area.
Trites said the return of the whales is one of the biggest marine success stories in recent years.
"It is just amazing that these two people got to experience the recovery of nature, to see it here," he said.
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