Скачать или смотреть A Research Vessel, a Lighthouse, & J Pod of Endangered Southern Resident Killer Whales, Haro Strait

Filmed from land at the southeastern tip of Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada, on Saturday, February 8, 2025, at 4:25 PM. At this point, I had been tracking and filming the whales for a full two full hours, from my perch above Ten Mile Point on Southern Vancouver Island. My camera has a 3000 mm lens, with 125X optical zoom capability. At this point, the whales were approximately six miles away from me.

The lighthouse in the background is Lime Kiln, on the west side of San Juan Island, Washington State, U. S. A.

The orca in the video with the prominent dorsal fin is J27, popularly referred to as "Blackberry'. Twenty-five other SRKWs are also there, somewhere in the mix, including J62, the newest calf. Also for the record, the animals in this video were northbound at the time.

The vessel in the video is KCB3, which belongs to the Center for Whale Research (CWR). It has a permit from NOAA to study these whales in US waters ( and from DFO to study them in Canadian waters ), be it from land, on the water or by deploying a drone. To my knowledge, there are no restrictions on the amount of time KCB3 can be in the vicinity of SRKWs on any given day, nor on the minimum distance that must be maintained at all times between the boat and the whales.

For the record, KCB3 notes that for them this particular Encounter started at 3:30 PM and ended at 5:10 PM.