Visitors to Victoria’s inner harbour get rare orca whale show

Oh dear how can this be? With all the ferries, sea planes, pleasure craft, harbour ferries, commercial fishing boats, tug boats, cruise ships, pilot boats, coast guard ships, whale watching boats, etc. how could any orca go near there with all the underwater noise?

We better get DFO to quickly close this area down to recreation fin fishing (but to no other type of fishing or marine traffic of course) ;)
 
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Not to mention the new super yachts for the new marina, racing sailboats, metal recycling barges, all the Navy and other ships for the Point Hope Ship Yard. Lets not forget all the high speed take off and landings from the sea planes running the commercial harbor to harbor flights to Vancouver. It was interesting to see the Harbour Authority boat following them around, apparently to try and protect them. It did not look like they were keeping a two hundred meter distance to me.
 
Oh dear how can this be? With all the ferries, sea planes, pleasure craft, harbour ferries, commercial fishing boats, tug boats, cruise ships, pilot boats, coast guard ships, whale watching boats, etc. how could any orca go near there with all the underwater noise?

We better get DFO to quickly close this area down to recreation fin fishing (but to no other type of fishing or marine traffic of course) ;)

These whales were transients, and hunt silently so the seals don't hear them, unlike residents who rely on echo location to hunt. The harbour noise probably wouldn't impede them, it might even help them by giving them cover, seals or sea lions might be less likely to detect them over the usual harbour noise. There was some speculation they were hunting in the area just outside the harbour. Maybe they just cruised in to see if an unsuspecting seal could be caught off guard, or were maybe just curious. They are doing well and have increased in number along with the number of seals and sea lions.
 
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