DFO is investigating the death of a third whale off the coast of BC in a matter of weeks
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A whale advocate says many collisions between ships and animals go undetected or unreported as the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) investigates yet another death of a humpback whale off the coast of B.C.
Caitlin Birdsall, executive director of the Marine Education and Research Society, says the whale was discovered on Nov. 8 near Lasqueti Island in the Georgia Strait off the Sunshine Coast, and is the third confirmed death since late September.
She says it’s unclear what happened to the 21-year-old whale, which DFO has identified in the photos as Polyphemus, a whale that migrates between the waters of Hawaii and B.C.
Birdsall says it can’t be said that whale deaths due to ship strikes are increasing, as most dead whales are never found, but she can say that “there has been an increase in reporting over the last few months.”
DFO said in a statement it was working to understand the latest deaths, noting that attacks on ships are “one of the primary threats” to humpback whales, whose numbers have recovered since commercial hunting stopped in the 1960s.
Christy McMillan, a DFO researcher who has been conducting whale surveys in the Salish Sea since 2020, told CBC News that as many as 400 humpback whales may spend time in the area during the fall.
“Humpback numbers should actually be down – because people think they’re migrating to warmer waters,” he said.
“And while that’s starting to be true, certainly in the Salish Sea and especially in the Strait of Georgia, by far the most humpbacks are here in the fall, not the summer.”
A humpback whale calf named Skipper suffered a deep laceration to its dorsal fin after a collision with a speedboat near Vancouver’s English Bay. Due to this incident, boaters have been asked to use more caution in the water.
McMillan said it’s important for boaters to know that humpback whales live in BC waters year-round, and it’s sadly not surprising to see so many dead whales over the past few weeks.
He said Polyphemus was known to frequent the part of the northern Strait of Georgia where its body was found, and scientists still need to perform an autopsy to determine the cause of the whale’s death.
“He’s a whale that comes back to that area year after year and he’s well known among people who are studying humpback whales in that area,” she said.
“And so when it comes to that … we know there have been some vehicle collisions, like, some ship collisions.”
third hunch dead
A dead humpback whale was found on September 18, a day after the BC Ferries Whale attack reportedWhile another whale was found died on 25th OctoberWhale-watching company Prince of Whales announced that one of its ships had contacted the animal.
On 17 October, a speeding boat was reported killing a humpback whale Near Vancouver in English Bay. Naturalists later confirmed that the ship had hit a calf, causing a deep gash near its dorsal fin.
In this video from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, a humpback whale can be seen freed from about 137 meters (450 feet) of fishing rope after a whale-watching boat found it in the Strait of Georgia. Correction: A previous version of this video included a headline that stated that the rope ensnaring the humpback whale was steel. Actually, according to DFO, the rope was polysteel, which is synthetic.
Birdsall says there has been an increase in reported ship attacks recently because these involved ships whose crews were “well aware of the legal requirement to report” and which also had passengers on board to “hold them accountable”.
She says whales that collide with ships do not die immediately, but instead “suffer injuries over several weeks or months”.
