A Victoria whale-watching company’s discovery of a dead humpback floating in the Strait of Juan de Fuca this week has naturalists concerned the whale might have been struck by a passing ship.
Val Shore, a naturalist with Eagle Wing Tours, saw the dead whale floating belly-up on Wednesday. The whale’s head was submerged, but its tail was visible near the surface and Shore was able to photograph the underside of its tail.
“It was a very sad sight to see,” Shore said in a statement from the Pacific Whale Watching Association. “We circled slowly around the whale to get photos from all angles, looking for signs of injury or entanglement. We couldn’t see anything obvious.”
Shore was able to identify the whale as Hawkeye or MMX0094, which was first seen and catalogued in 2016. She had seen the young whale as recently as Sept. 22, off Otter Point just west of Sooke. At that time, the whale appeared healthy.
Shore immediately shared her photographs with marine mammal authorities at Fisheries and Oceans Canada, as well as with humpback researchers in the region.
Paul Cottrell, marine mammals co-ordinator with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, was out on the water Friday trying to disentangle a sea lion and was not available for comment.
The carcass must be retrieved for a necropsy before a cause of death can be determined, and authorities are asking for the public’s help in finding the body. It was last seen floating in Clallam Bay, along the Washington coast.
Anyone with information on the whale’s whereabout is asked to contact DFO at 1-604-240-3841 if the body is in Canadian waters. If it’s in U.S. waters, call the Stranding Network Hotline at 1-866-767-6114.
Humpback whales can be identified by markings on the undersides of their tails, such as barnacle scars, tooth rakes, scratches and unique colourations. A catalogue has been compiled with hundreds of photos of the undersides of the tails of whales sighted in the Salish Sea, said the Pacific Whale Watching Association.
