Ash Falls, News, Orca Adoption, Updates

Summer Stories from OrcaLab 🐳

As the Summer draws to a close and Fall sets in round Johnston Strait the team at OrcaLab have busy monitoring the Northern Resident groups as they passed through the area. We’ve just had the latest update from them, with some beautiful video shot by one of their Summer staff.

The Orcas finally arrived on Canada Day – July 1st – and the team of new volunteers at Orcalab tracked them visually and acoustically as they made their way to the Strait, taking plenty of recordings and pictures as they did so. The visit was short lived though, but there was no sign of Holly and her family until a little later in the Summer when they were captured in the video clips below, arriving around 20th July!

Throughout late-July and on through August, the team at OrcaLab were treated to seeing or hearing Holly almost every day when they appeared in the area of the Strait. Last year Holly and her family gave the monitoring area a wide-bearth spending hardly any time within the teams monitoring range so the team were very happy to have the opportunity to catch up with their old friend.

Our latest update from the team arrived today with some big news – Holly is now a grandmother! This is a big surprise for all of the team as the mother of this new edition is Holly’s daughter, Current. There has been a lot of debate as to whether Current was actually male or female, and most recently expert opinion had suggested that Current’s dorsal fin had grown suggesting the beginning of male puberty. This arrival of the new baby means that Holly’s family finally have a new generation to look towards, with the baby being even more special as calves are rarely born midseason. Holly took her family towards Georgia Strait and they have stayed there since the end of August so the team at OrcaLab have yet to properly see or record the baby.

Whilst we wait for our next update on Holly and her new grandchild, please enjoy this second video, with more shots of Holly and family throughout the month!

Julz

If you’d like to learn more about how your group fees and our donation works, please visit WDC here to learn more about their conservation efforts.
If you’d like to learn more about Orcalab’s work with the Northern Resident community, please visit them here.
Any group fees received in excess of our regular donation payment continue to be reinvested in to improvements on our builds and in to continuing to provide our environments for your enjoyment.

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