A humpback officially named “Wally” by Happy Whale is one of the best known humpbacks on the northern British Columbia coast. Those people in Prince Rupert who have observed him (sex determined by DNA testing) often call him “two dots” because of the distinctive two dots on his tail fluke.

According to the Happy Whale database, Wally was first spotted in September, 2004  and has been seen 14 times (including my sighting) between Prince Rupert and Prince of Wales Island Alaska. The other time was January, 2022, off Maui.

Humpbacks are identified by the distinctive pattern of their flukes, the equivalent of a human fingerprint.

I was on the Prince Rupert Adventure Tours  trip into the Khutzeymateen grizzly sanctuary when we spotted two humpbacks bubble feeding at the Khutzeymateen Inlet Conservancy. The humpbacks blow the bubbles to create a “net” to catch their prey.

Humpbacks bubble feeding. (Robin Rowland)

 

I was unable to get a shot of the tail of the second whale.