Unforgettable Sightings of Feeding Whales

This week, marine wildlife made waves in the estuary and gulf, literally and figuratively! First, the notable presence of tuna almost everywhere in the river intrigues those who observe their deftness for the first time. Indeed, funny splashes and spirited leaps out of the water confirm the presence of bluefin tuna in the St. Lawrence. Their hydrodynamic shape is a wonderful adaptation for hunting in a marine environment, providing them with the ability to zip through the water at peak speeds of up to 100 km/h!

These large predators can reach two metres in length, weigh up to 600 kg and live up to 40 years. They are also highly migratory, travelling up to 10,000 km in a single year. All these characteristics make them fairly easy animals to observe and identify!

However, observers and experts are puzzled by the increased presence of bluefin tuna in the river environment, which has been noted over the past ten years or so by scientific experts at Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO). What conclusions can be drawn from this strong increase in the presence of tuna farther north?

On a more exciting note, around ten humpbacks offered an extremely rare spectacle to the few fortunate individuals who happened to be in the right place at the right time on Thursday, September 14! Spectators oohed and aahed at breaches not by the dozens, but by the hundreds. H919, a.k.a. Titlo, reportedly breached around fifty times, while Yvon and Éline were said to have performed similar acrobatics dozens of times! Even a younger whale – possibly Tingley’s sixth calf – showed off its agility by performing around thirty breaches. Was this its first aerial performance? Maybe not, but observers were undoubtedly deeply moved regardless. Naturalist and wildlife photographer Renaud Pintiaux describes the palpable excitement that reigned offshore: “It was completely out of the ordinary and unreal. Tears, smiles, disbelief, pure joy.” During one breach, the whale emerges at a speed of 15 knots and an angle of 30° with nearly 90% of its body out of the water before performing an aerial half-twist and splashing down on its back!

A number of hypotheses have been put forward by experts to explain this relatively infrequent behaviour: diet, enhanced diving capacity, play, communication, etc. These breaches actually seem to be more frequent when the nearest group is more than four kilometres away, especially during periods of inclement weather conditions when wind and waves tend to mask the cetaceans’ vocalizations.