carcass | Race Rocks Ecological Reserve-

Weather Today:

Visitors and traffic:

Not much traffic with the strong winds this week and last (55 knots!) only a handful of whale watching boats when conditions allow

Notes:

Just above the intertidal east of the jetty we found the carcass of a deceased male Stellar sea lion. It’s the early stages of decomposition and we think it died at least 4 days ago since we accidentally captured it in the background of one of our photos. We are not sure how it died and it has no obvious injuries. We are hopeful that we might be able to learn more! We’re not sure if it died here or was washed ashore by the strong swells last weekend.
Last week we forgot to mention that we were joined by a sweet young elephant seal who had hidden among the sea lions near the jetty. It was not tagged so unfortunately we don’t have any more information and it was gone by the next day.
There have been an incredible number of eagles in the reserve eating both fish and seagulls. It’s amazing to watch them hunt and even more incredible to watch them carefully pluck a bird before digging in (albeit a bit gory).
We have still been seeing whales every day, primarily humpbacks but we have also been thrilled to see the occasional pod of orcas passing by. Today we spotted one young whale tail slapping continuously for about 5 minutes before moving along past Pedder Bay. It’s comforting to see the whales exhibiting their regular feeding patterns now that there are fewer vessels on the water. Now that we have become more tuned observers of whales, the behavioral contrast between vessels present and absent can be very stark.