VIDEO: Dream come true: orcas wow onlookers with Victoria Inner Harbour visit<\/p>\n
Published 11:15 am Friday, May 1, 2026<\/p>\n
Scrolling through social media, Amy MacCutchan\u2019s heart stopped. A rare opportunity to realize a long-awaited dream had presented itself.<\/p>\n
The Victoria resident has often seen whales from shore, but never up close.<\/p>\n
So when a pod of orcas meandered their way into Victoria\u2019s Inner Harbour Thursday afternoon (April 30), MacCutchan knew what she had to do.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was easy to predict that they\u2019d have to come back out, so I booked it for Ogden Point and saw the people starting to gather at the end of the point,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The planets aligned for MacCutchan, the perfect parking space opening up for her just in time for her to join the group of admirers on the Breakwater.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo be honest, I might have considered parking illegally for this opportunity,\u201d she jokes. \u201cA parking ticket would be a literal small price to pay for this experience.\u201d<\/p>\n
With her 12-year-old child Charlie by her side, the pair sprinted towards the magic \u2013 a dream come true.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was very emotional, I\u2019ve been beaming ever since,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The six visitors were identified as the T049As by Prince of Whales operations manager Traben Fischer, who said the orcas are a common transient pod often seen in Vancouver Island waters.<\/p>\n
Among the whales was 15-year-old male Nat, T49A3, said Fischer, who caught the pod in the harbour on video.<\/p>\n
Despite working in the whale watching industry, catching sight of the marine mammals never gets old. Something demonstrated by his reaction caught on video.<\/p>\n
\u201cAre you kidding me? Oh my god, they\u2019re coming all the way in,\u201d he says before gasping as one whale surfaces to take a breath.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Kyle Munro, who works for FRS Clipper, also captured the action in the harbour. His video shows the orcas approaching a docked Prince of Whales vessel in the harbour, with people on deck not having to go far to witness the animals in the wild.<\/p>\n
Working in the harbour, whales have become a common sight for Munro.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m lucky enough to see them once or twice a year,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Among the lucky few at the Breakwater was Lea Gouillardon, who last year volunteered with wild orca project OrcaLab.<\/p>\n
\u201cI really enjoy seeing them all the time,\u201d she said. \u201cIt was great, they hung out for almost 20 minutes, going back and forth. It was really nice, and everyone was so amazed.\u201d<\/p>\n
The April 30 wildlife spectacle is believed to be the first documented Inner Harbour orca visit of the year.<\/p>\n
Last year, visits from Bigg\u2019s killer whales to Victoria\u2019s Inner Harbour and shoreline became a familiar sight throughout 2025.<\/p>\n
Experts believe the increase in sightings is likely tied to an abundance of \u201ceasy-picking\u201d harbour seals, which draw the predatory whales into the busy downtown waters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"VIDEO: Dream come true: orcas wow onlookers with Victoria Inner Harbour visit Published 11:15 am Friday, May 1,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":642209,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[49,48,66,36245,323],"class_list":["post-642208","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-science","tag-vancouver-island","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/642208","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=642208"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/642208\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/642209"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=642208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=642208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=642208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}