DFO investigating 3rd whale death off B.C.’s coast within weeks

A whale advocate says many collisions between vessels and animals likely go undetected or unreported as the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) investigates another humpback whale death off the coast of British Columbia.

Caitlin Birdsall, chief executive of the Society for Marine Education and Research, says the whale was discovered on November 8 off Lasqueti Island in the Strait of Georgia near the Sunshine Coast and is the third confirmed death since late September.

She says it's unclear what happened to the 21-year-old whale, which DFO identified in photographs as Polyphemus, a whale that migrates between Hawaii and waters off British Columbia.

Birdsall says she can't say whether whale mortality is increasing due to ship strikes since most dead whales are never discovered, but she can say that “there has been an increase in reports over the last couple of months.”

In a statement, DFO said it is working to determine the cause of the latest deaths, noting that ship strikes “are one of the major threats” to humpback whales, whose numbers have rebounded since commercial hunting ended in the 1960s.

Christy McMillan, a researcher with DFO who has been conducting whale research in the Salish Sea since 2020, told CBC News there could be as many as 400 humpback whales in the area in the fall.

“The number of humpbacks should actually be decreasing because people think they are migrating to warmer waters,” she said.

“And while that’s starting to become true, especially in the Salish Sea and especially in the Georgian Strait, humpbacks are most abundant here in the fall rather than the summer.”

WATCH | Another whale was injured after the collision:

Humpback calf suffers deep wound after ferry collision

A baby humpback whale named Skipper suffered a deep gash on its dorsal fin after being struck by a high-speed ferry near English Bay in Vancouver. This incident is causing boats to be more careful on the water.

McMillan said it's important for boaters to know that humpback whales are in British Columbia waters year-round, and it's unfortunately not surprising that so many dead whales have been seen over the past few weeks.

She said Polyphemus was known to frequent the part of the northern Strait of Georgia where his body was found, and scientists still need to perform a necropsy to determine the whale's cause of death.

“This is a whale that returns to the area year after year and is known to people who study humpback whales in the area,” she said.

“And so when it comes down to it…we know that there have been multiple vehicle, vessel collisions, for example.”

The third humpback is dead

The dead humpback whale was found on September 18, the day after the BC Ferries vessel. reported a whale attackwhile another whale was found died October 25Shortly after whale watching company Prince of Whales announced that one of its vessels had come into contact with the animal.

On October 17, the high-speed ferry reported strike a humpback whale near Vancouver in English Bay. Naturalists later confirmed that the boat struck the calf, leaving a deep gash near its dorsal fin.

WATCH | The hunchback, entangled in a rope, is freed:

Rescuers free a humpback whale caught in a 137-metre rope near Nanaimo, British Columbia

This video from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans shows a humpback whale freed from nearly 137 meters (450 feet) of fishing rope after a whale watching boat found it in the Strait of Georgia. Correction: A previous version of this video had a caption that stated the rope entangling the humpback whale was steel. In fact, according to DFO, the rope was made from synthetic polysteel.

Birdsall said there had been an increase in reports of ship strikes recently because they involved ships whose crews were “well aware of the legal reporting requirements” and also had passengers on board in order to “hold them accountable.”

She says whales hit by ships may not die immediately, but “succumb to their injuries many weeks or months” later.