A North Vancouver paddleboarder experienced a rare and close up encounter with a grey whale near Stanley Park Thursday morning, before the majestic mammal made its way to Dundarave to delight some spectators.
Renée Erdman normally picks either Deep Cove or Stanley Park to paddleboard, but early Thursday morning she had “an inkling” that motivated her to try Third Beach. She had heard reports of a grey whale in the area from the previous day.
All was serene as Erdman set out on her stand up paddleboard around 6 a.m. — until she was suddenly startled.
“And then I just saw the spout of water from the whale,” recalled Erdman, who estimated she was just metres away from the colossal creature. “It was coming to the surface, but it wasn’t fully doing a breach.”
Erdman immediately pulled out her iPhone to capture the once-in-a-lifetime encounter.
“Sorry I’m shaking so badly. This is crazy,” Erdman can be heard saying in the video, which has gotten some traction on her Facebook page.
At one point Erdman questions out loud whether or not she’s safe being so close to the whale, but ultimately decides she will never get an experience like this again.
“When I saw it (the whale) I almost started crying — it’s just so surreal. It really puts into perspective how majestic these animals are,” said Erdman, who runs a dog training company in North Van.
Erdman estimated she sat on her board in the ocean for about 40 minutes just quietly observing the whale as it put on a show.
“It had barnacles on it, and its flipper kept coming up,” she said.
For Erdman, who is used to seeing sea birds and the occasional seal while paddling, Thursday’s whale sighting is something she won’t soon forget.
Later that afternoon social media was aflutter with reports of a grey whale hanging around Dundarave pier.
Carla Crossman, a marine mammal research biologist with the Vancouver Aquarium, said experts are fairly confident the same whale was in the area for several days last week.
Starting on Wednesday morning it was spotted off Stanley Park. Then in the afternoon it went by Dundarave. Then circled back to Stanley Park. By Thursday, the whale was in Dundarave again, where it was again spotted on Friday.
“So, it seems to definitely be liking those two areas,” said Crossman.
So why did this grey whale end up in Burrard Inlet, when most grey whales normally migrate from the Baja area up to Alaska?
“Along the way if they find good food they will stop,” said Crossman.
The whale was on a feeding frenzy Wednesday afternoon in Dundarave, as a team of marine biologists from the Aquarium observed.
The shallow, muddy sea floor is rich with krill and other shrimp-like crustacea that whales enjoy feasting on, dragging their gaping mouth along the bottom to collect their prey.
Crossman said the whale, estimated to be a small adult, appeared to be healthy.
Grey whales do make an appearance every now and again in the waters around Vancouver. The last sighting was in 2010 when a whale was seen swimming in False Creek.
More recently there has also been a surge of humpback whales in Howe Sound, including one spotted last week.
“They are calling it the humpback comeback,” said Crossman, of that species’ return to Howe Sound.
One theory is the humpbacks are following the herring which have come back in large numbers in that area recently.
“Like almost anything, they (whales) are going to go where the food goes. If everything at the bottom of the food chain is doing well it’s going to trickle up,” said Crossman.
Scientific advisors are now talking with conservation groups and suggesting the humpbacks be delisted from a threatened species to one of special concern.
