Young humpback whale 'butchered by a large-vessel propeller' off Vancouver Island, researcher says

Courtenay, B.C. -

A necropsy has been performed on a two-and-a-half-year-old humpback whale that was found floating off the west coast of Vancouver Island near Bamfield on Thursday.

According to Jackie Hildering of the Marine Education Research Society, “Halfpipe,” as the whale was known, was a familiar sight in B.C. waters.

“Halfpipe, to we researchers and to a lot of whale-watchers, is extremely well-known as a two-year-old calf who has migrated three times all the way from Mexico,” Hildering said.

She said the young mammal is the grand-calf of “Heather” and his mother is “Split Fluke.”

Hildering said the whale likely died after a tragic run-in with a large vessel and hopes that researchers can learn from the death.

“If a two-year-old humpback has been butchered by a large-vessel propeller that has gone through his jaw, narrowly missed his eye and down his back, we want that to count,” she said. “It might be that mariners are not aware that these whales will not get out of the way.”

Kaitlin Paquette is a whale-watching guide out of Campbell River. She says she was honoured with the opportunity of naming the young whale and is deeply affected by his death.

“When you spend enough time on the water, like I do every summer watching whales, you cannot help but be affected by them,” Paquette said.

She says she first encountered the whale near Marina Island back in 2019 when the calf was travelling with its mother.

“Knowing them as individuals is what makes a time like [his death] both so important from an educational standpoint and also what makes it so heartbreaking at the same time” she said.

Hildering says the whale likely collided with a vessel near Swiftsure Bank off the southwest coast of Vancouver Island – an area frequented by freighters heading towards the Lower Mainland.

“There is this incredibly intense overlap that is like an obstacle course and if you have large-vessel traffic going at high speed with the wrong presumptions, that is highly problematic” Hildering said.

Hildering is hoping this incident can help be a learning experience when it comes to reducing collisions between humpbacks and large vessels.