Follow the Tofino Whale Sightings Blog to stay up to date on what wildlife we are seeing in Tofino.
When most people picture sea otters, they think of fuzzy faces, whiskers, and paws clasped together while floating on their backs. In Tofino, we’re lucky enough to see these captivating animals almost daily on our tours — but there’s so much more to them than cuteness. Sea otters are powerful ecosystem engineers, shaping the health of our coastal waters in ways you might not expect.
Read MoreGray Whales undertake one of the longest migrations of any mammal species. They travel annually between their summer feeding grounds in the Arctic and their winter breeding and calving grounds in the lagoons of Baja, Mexico.
Read MoreA visit from the Bigg’s Killer Whales T068C’s in the Tofino Harbour on March 31, 2021.
Read MoreYesterday was a great day for Killer Whale sightings for our guides in Tofino! In the morning Howie Tom picked up the T109B’s and T109C’s at Cleland Island. These two gangs spent the afternoon slowly making their way to Lennard Light eating many seals along the way. These two gangs are the offspring of T109 (aka Big Momma) and are frequent visitors to Clayoquot Sound.
Read MoreBig Momma! T109 (born in the mid 1970’s) is a frequent visitor to Clayoquot Sound. This matriarch is a mother to 4 daughters and 1 son plus Grandmother/Great Grandmother to 13 offspring. She was in Tofino yesterday with T109D, T109D1 and T109E. Yesterday was our first encounter with her since T109B and T109C split off with their offspring.
Read MoreThis morning John and I were going to head out to try and photograph Blue Sharks but our plans changed when we got word that there were 9 Bigg’s Killer Whales off Lennard Light. The T109A’s, now a gang of eight, were back! They had not been photographed in our waters since winter. This gang is locally known as The Runaways and they are frequent visitors to the Tofino area. The gang had a bull with them today. T097, who was born in 1980, has only been photographed in our area once in 2011. We were excited to photograph a new to us Killer Whale and use the new DFO Photo-Identification catalogue! The Killer Whales spent most of the day slowing moving up the coast killing several seals along the way.
Read MoreWe have had fantastic Whale sightings over the past week in Tofino.
Guests on our tours have been able to see Minke Whales a few miles off Lennard Light. Minke Whales are the second smallest baleen whale. The Minke Whale is does not give us as much surface time as other whales. It breathes three to five times at short intervals before 'deep-diving' for two to 20 minutes. Deep dives are preceded by a pronounced arching of the back.
Read MoreYesterday we got word that 6 Killer Whales were making their way into Templar Channel. We met up with the Killer Whales as they were making their way through the Channel into the Tofino Harbour. They swam through the harbour and up Browning Passage. We identified the whales as the T075B, T075B2, T075B3, T075C, T075C1 and T037A1. They were last seen last night in the Bedwell.
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