The next family of Bigg’s (transient) killer whales to be featured in our meet-the whales series is the beloved T123 family!

This small family has had to overcome life-threatening obstacles. The individuals that make up this family are favourites of many who have had the pleasure of watching them thrive over the years.   

Let’s meet this family of four and learn what makes them stand out from other Bigg’s. And also, in some ways, what makes them similar!

A strong bond

Known as T123 by researchers, Sidney is the mother and leader of the family. She was born sometime around 1985. Sidney is also the largest measured female Bigg’s killer whale measuring in at 7.1 metres (23.3 feet) long!

To give you a little perspective, that’s approximately four human adults on top of each other! An even more impressive comparison is that the largest measured southern resident male killer whale measured in at 7.25 metres. In short, Sidney is one large whale!

Sidney is believed to be one of the breakaway daughters of the legendary Wake (T046), and the sister of Raksha (T046B). Both of these prolific matriarchs are featured in previous blogs in this series. Learn more about the T046s and the T046Bs.

Sidney has had four known offspring. There’s elder son Stanley (T123A), born in 2000; daughter Lucky (T123C), born in 2012 and daughter Darcy (T123D), born in 2018. A second son, Thrasher (T123B), was born in 2009 but disappeared in 2011.

Suspected to be in her late 30s, Sidney may have at least one more calf before she enters the post-reproductive phase of her life.

Near tragedy

Let’s go back to a time when the T123 family consisted of only two individuals. In the summer of 2011, a report of stranded killer whales sent waves through the small community of Prince Rupert on British Columbia’s north coast.

The news quickly attracted the attention of locals, who raced to the scene. Doug and Debbie Davis of Prince Rupert Adventure Tours arrived on scene to find two killer whales stuck on a sandbar. It was concluded that they’d stranded while chasing seals on a falling tide. Distracted, the two whales hadn’t noticed the water level rising.

In a video of the stranding shot by the Davis’s you can see the two whales trapped on the sandbar. (Be warned that it can be disturbing to see and hear the whales in this predicament, but keep in mind it has a happy ending.)

The two whales were determined to be members of the mammal-hunting Bigg’s population, and were later identified as Sidney and Stanley. At this point in time the second son, Thrasher, was already missing.

The Lucky whale

Unknown to those on scene, Sidney was pregnant at the time! The heat of being out of the water and the crushing pressure of gravity on her internal organs could have been disastrous to both her health and the health of the unborn calf.

Luckily, the tide came back in and flooded the sandbar, allowing Sidney and Stanley to refloat and escape. By the following year, Sidney had successfully delivered her third offspring without apparent complication. This is one reason why the female calf, known to researchers as T123C, is nicknamed Lucky!

While the nickname Lucky was given to her after Lucky Creek which flows into Clayoquot Sound, most like to think the name was given in commemoration of her family’s survival.

Accomplished hunters

The T123s are frequent visitors to the southern Salish Sea, where they occasionally display their spectacular hunting prowess. In May 2020, shore-based whale watchers on San Juan Island watched for an hour and half as they worked together to try and subdue a large Steller sea lion. They rammed it, jumped on it and slapped it with their tails.

View a video of this incident, shot by the San Juan Island-based Orca Behaviour Institute. Be sure to watch to the end and you’ll see the surprising outcome!

Another memorable encounter with the T123 family was in October 2018 near Race Rocks. Lucky and two youngsters from the T35A and T38A families spent quite a bit of time chasing birds, jumping on them and flipping them out of the water with their tails. Sidney and the other adults indulgently swam nearby. While this behaviour is sad for the birds, it’s essential prey-handling training for young killer whales!

A doppelganger in the mix!

A lot of people ask us “How in the world can you tell these whales apart? They all look the same!” Well, in the case of the T123 family we might say “Yes, that’s true for one member of the family. Stanley has a doppelganger!”

Normally when identifying whales, we look at key physical markings on each individual whale. Put these markings together and we have a killer whale “fingerprint” that on close examination is unique to each whale. We look at things like the shape of the dorsal fin, nicks in the dorsal fin, the shape of the eye patches. We also look any scarring on the grey saddle patch at the base of the dorsal fin.

One of the main distinguishing features on Stanley is a notch on his dorsal fin about a third of the way from the top. There’s another whale in the Bigg’s population with a similar notch in the same location. This is Yelnats (T060C) a mature male from the T060 matriline.

Stay tuned for the story of the T060 family, which will be featured in a future blog. But back to Stanley and Yelnats—on first glance it’s hard to tell who is who, so a little detective work is often needed.

We can snap a photograph and look closer at the eyepatch and saddle patch to distinguish the two. Or we can also look at the other whales present and see who they’re travelling with. Did you notice that Yelnats is Stanley spelt backwards to acknowledge the similarity! 

Join us on a tour!

Join us on a tour for your chance to get a glimpse of Sidney and her family, and to learn more about the whales and wildlife of the Salish Sea. To book a tour give us a call or book online.

Blog written by Melissa Blake, marine naturalist with Eagle Wing Tours

Published Sept. 25, 2022