{"id":781162,"date":"2026-07-05T19:33:16","date_gmt":"2026-07-05T19:33:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/781162\/"},"modified":"2026-07-05T19:33:16","modified_gmt":"2026-07-05T19:33:16","slug":"second-largest-whale-species-on-earth-spotted-in-b-c-waters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/781162\/","title":{"rendered":"Second largest whale species on earth spotted in B.C. waters"},"content":{"rendered":"

Whale watchers were delighted to see a large fin whale swimming off the waters of Shirley, B.C., last week \u2013 marking a rare sighting of the second largest whale in local waters.<\/p>\n

Mollie Cameron, a skipper with Sooke Coastal Explorations, says her tour spotted the fin whale on the morning of Sunday, June 28.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, the first sighting of it was just really incredible,\u201d she told CHEK News on Friday.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou kind of only see the back of it, but still knowing that it\u2019s a different species \u2013 and then to see how large it was \u2013 when it first surfaced you could see kind of the blow hole and then how long it actually took to get to the dorsal fin, it just showed the incredible size of that animal,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

A video of the whale is shown below, courtesy of Sooke Coastal Explorations:<\/p>\n

Fin whales are the second-largest whale species on earth, second only to the blue whale, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration<\/a> (NOAA).<\/p>\n

They grow to an average size of 20 to 27 metres long (66 to 89 feet) and weigh 60 to 80 tonnes, according to Fisheries and Oceans Canada<\/a>. They can also live up to 100 years.<\/p>\n

The fin whale spotted this weekend is estimated to be 21 metres, or 70 feet, according to Eagle Wing Tours.<\/p>\n

Cameron credits Eagle Wing with being the first ones to spot the fin whale, and let her team know the approximate location of where it was.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was an impossibly rare sighting and we were so, so lucky,\u201d Eagle Wing Tours Naturalist Molly Hackett said.<\/p>\n

\u2018Really exciting day\u2019<\/p>\n

Cameron says this is the first time she\u2019s ever seen a fin whale in B.C., after working on the water for the past decade.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know they\u2019ve been documented in the Salish Sea before but it was certainly a first for our team and it was just a really exciting day,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Cameron says she normally tells her tour guests that it\u2019s common to see humpbacks or orcas in the area, and rare to see grey whales and minke whales near Vancouver Island.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo if we do encounter them you should all leave and go buy a lottery ticket because you were all really lucky,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

\u201cSo I knew where the fin whale was and when we got up to the animal I said to all my guests, \u2018You know you really need to buy a lottery ticket today because this is kind of a first for even us.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Cameron says fin whales have only been seen a handful of times in B.C. over the past 10 years at sporadic intervals.<\/p>\n

Hackett says this is likely due previous hunts, which massively reduced the population. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s only since 2015 that we\u2019ve started to see them coming back,\u201d she said. \u201cThis is actually only the sixth one that\u2019s been recorded back in the Salish Sea.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cameron thinks one reason why the fin whale was here may be because of food, with the species feeding primarily on krill and small school fish like herring.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe assume there\u2019s quite a bit of food, even with the amount of humpbacks we\u2019ve been seeing this year and previous years, but the Salish Sea seems to be a pretty nutrient-dense area for these animals,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo hopefully that\u2019ll encourage more species to visit over time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hackett adds the fin whale that was spotted was healthy looking and possibly a \u201cyounger individual looking to explore some new feeding grounds.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fin whales eat up to two tons of food a day, according to NOAA. The animal is considered endangered by NOAA, and as a species of \u201cspecial concern\u201d in Canada.<\/p>\n

SEE ALSO:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Whale watchers were delighted to see a large fin whale swimming off the waters of Shirley, B.C., last…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":781163,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[64,63,128,446,338],"class_list":["post-781162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-science","tag-video","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/781162","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=781162"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/781162\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/781163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=781162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=781162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=781162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}