Spotting a killer whale in the wild is partly about being in the right place at the right time.<\/p>\n
And, apparently, having better luck than I do.<\/p>\n
For Will Guarasci, of the Shore to Sea Society, land-based whale watching is all about letting the whales decide when, and whether they want to be seen.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe beauty of land-based whale watching is that you let the whale decide whether you\u2019re going to be able to see them,\u201d Guarasci says. \u201cThat could be up close, or I\u2019ve seen whales from as far as 10 kilometres away.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a different approach to whale watching on Vancouver Island, where companies take visitors out on the water in search of orcas and other marine life.<\/p>\n
Those operators are world-renowned and follow federal regulations around approach distances and noise levels, while many also support Salish Sea conservation initiatives.<\/p>\n
But Guarasci says there\u2019s something special about watching from land.<\/p>\n
Watch more in the video below:<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re not putting another boat in the water,\u201d he says. \u201cYou look out the window at any time and you\u2019ll see all sorts of vessels.\u201d Guarasci, a marine biology student at UBC Okanagan says even boats adhering to standards set out by Fisheries and Oceans Canada could pose potential harm to food sourcing to both southern resident and transient killer whales alike. \u201cKiller whales, specifically the southern residents use a lot of echo location for communication purposes, so vessel noise can really disturb them.\u201d<\/p>\n
From a Facebook chat to thousands of followers<\/p>\n
Shore to Sea started as a Facebook Messenger group, with members keeping an eye on the location of whale watching boats before heading down to the shoreline to watch for themselves. \u201cIf you have a lot of vessels in one location, there\u2019s a good chance you\u2019ll spot whales.\u201d<\/p>\n
What began as a small group has grown to about 7,000 followers.<\/p>\n
The group is now part of the Southern Gulf Island Whale Sighting Network, and sightings are spread mostly by word of mouth instead of the digital tracking of ships.<\/p>\n
When a whale is spotted, people can find themselves heading to the water at a moment\u2019s notice, cameras and binoculars in hand.<\/p>\n
Guarasci says he\u2019s had dozens of sightings in the past few months. \u201cThis summer I\u2019ve been fortunate enough to have about 35 encounters from shore. Many of those have been up close.\u201d<\/p>\n
For people who live on Vancouver Island, the appeal is obvious. These are moments many residents have experienced themselves: a dorsal fin breaking the surface, a pod travelling past the shoreline, or an orca appearing unexpectedly in the distance.<\/p>\n
For some of us, though, the whales seem to be playing hard to get.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve lived on Vancouver Island for almost my entire life. I\u2019ve seen a fin pop out of the water a few hundred metres away, but nothing quite like the sightings shared by the Shore to Sea group.<\/p>\n
At this point, I\u2019m beginning to suspect there\u2019s a conspiracy in the Salish Sea specifically designed to keep whales away from me.<\/p>\n
Patience is key<\/p>\n
There are no guarantees, of course. Whales have their own schedules, and unlike a whale-watching tour, the shore doesn\u2019t come with a captain who knows where to look.<\/p>\n
Binoculars help, especially when whales are several kilometres offshore, as can knowing what you\u2019re looking for.<\/p>\n
For those willing to wait, land-based whale watching offers something a little different: no boat, no itinerary and no guarantee of what will appear.<\/p>\n
You simply head down to the water and see what happens.<\/p>\n
And if you\u2019re lucky, there\u2019s a whale waiting for you.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m still waiting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Spotting a killer whale in the wild is partly about being in the right place at the right…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":882540,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[49,48,66,1062,323],"class_list":["post-882539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-science","tag-video","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/882539","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=882539"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/882539\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/882540"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=882539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=882539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=882539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}