'It's really exciting': Rare white orca spotted on northern Vancouver Island

Orca sightings on Vancouver Island aren't rare, but they're always thrilling, and that was especially true for a group of aquaculture workers on the North Island this week.

Mike Dobbs was one of a dozen Mowi Canada employees mesmerized by a rare white orca and its mother. The cetaceans had come extremely close to shore in Beaver Cove, near the village of Telegraph Cove, B.C.

"We didn’t understand what the white whale was," Dobbs said. "We didn’t recognize it as an orca at first. (Our) first concern and (the) first alarming thing was that they were on the beach."

Researchers have named the white whale "Frostbite." The animal was born in 2019, and is part of a group of outer coast transient killer whales never spotted in B.C. before, according to researcher Josh McInnes.

"It’s not unexpected to see these groups (of whales) hunting around harbour seal haulouts or sea lion haulouts, but for this particular group of whales who spend most of their time in deep waters off of California or Oregon, we don’t see them in close proximity to land," McInnes said.

He said the white calf and its mother are included in a new catalogue of 155 whales he has spent the last six years compiling.

"We’ve never had a report of (these two) outside of California," he said. "This showed an interesting trend for a new mother. She might just be exploring, getting to know other transient groups for potential mating purposes … It’s really exciting."

McInnes said the Beaver Cove sighting was important and rare, something that didn't occur to Dobbs as he was recording it.

"The gravity of what I’d witnessed didn’t hit me until much later that evening when I was decompressing and people were reaching out to me," Dobbs said.

According to McInnes, Frostbite, its mother and the rest of the outer coast transients are expected to be back on their way to California soon.

With files from CTV News Vancouver Island's Gord Kurbis