Johnstone Strait, Vancouver  Island, BC

The skies are bright overcast – photographer’s light. There’s a wisp of a breeze, a late-season smell of fetid carbon. Raven swoosh noisily by, rowing the air. We’re paddling just inside the kelp line, on a zigzag course along the forested shore of two-mile wide Johnstone Strait.

If I was paying attention, I suppose I’d say the paddling conditions were joyful – if I was paying attention – but I’m not. We’ve hit a mother lode of Orca, Orcinus Orca, Killer Whale. Me, I’m getting swivel neck from so many whales passing by our kayaks.

I see – or hear – a spout, then twist to try to get a photo. Mostly my shots miss the peak of the action, but I have lots of chances so I’ve banked a few keepers. The one shot that I want, though – the money shot I don’t yet have – is a pod of Orcas surfacing in front of our kayak raft.

It’s early September, and I’m on a guided trip with Sea Kayak Adventures to see Orca. It turns out September is a good month for that, sort of like June in the San Juan’s, but this is more of a wilderness experience, and its without the San Juan throng of whale-watch boats and their accompanying harassment. We have a base camp set up at Kaikash Creek, an optimal viewing place. While ashore, Orca periodically swim within a horseshoe’s pitch of camp. It’s always smart to have the camera ready.

The Orca ply the Strait here in search of salmon. We learn from guide Lexie Owen that the Northwest has three separate groups: Residents, Transients and Offshore. Residents are fish eaters – mostly dining on salmon – and have some fairly localized territory. Transient Orca are strictly mammal eaters, and are far more wide-ranging. They may forage in an area, then not reappear for years. For example, in 2003 a transient pod of 11 went into Hood Canal, stayed 50 days, and devoured at least a third of the 1,500 harbor seals living there.

Offshore Orca were discovered late as a distinct group. As their name implies, they stay mostly well offshore. They hunt mostly fish, but they’re not well understood.

The Residents Orca are further divided into two distinct clans. The Northern Residents that we’re observing here occupy Johnstone and Queen Charlotte Strait, and number about 205 individuals. The Southern Residents, “our” Orca, are centered in the greater Puget Sound area and summer in the San Juans. The Northern Residents have few idiosyncrasies. They speak to each other in a distinguishable dialect, and they love to duck into Robson Bight – location of the famed rubbing beach – to rub their bellies on the beach cobbles.

According to the just released numbers from the Center for Whale Research in Friday Harbor, our Southern Resident numbers are at 83 individuals, down from 87 last year, though up from a low of 79 in 2001. Two of the three calves known to be born this year didn’t make it, and one of the old matriarchs died as well. Most disturbing, two females in their reproductive prime were lost. Ken Balcomb, the lead whale center scientist, called this “a disaster”, and cited low Chinook salmon numbers as a possible cause.