WEST SEATTLE WHALE WATCHING: Northbound orcas

| West Seattle news | Wildlife

Thanks for the tips! Orcas have been seen northbound past West Seattle in the past half-hour – Bretnie reported one off Fauntleroy, Amy saw four off Emma Schmitz Memorial Overlook.

JayDee December 22, 2017 (2:03 pm)

In the years you’ve been posting these, I’ve never seen them. Usually I am at work, but today I was home, but 50 minutes too late….(lived here 20+ years). Arggggrh!

Sam-c December 26, 2017 (9:39 pm)

Lol. Jaydee, i know your pain. I haven’t lived here quite as long, but i haven’t seen them in person either. Even my mother in law, who visits once or twice a year, has seen them. (I called my husband from work, after seeing an alert here on WSB, and they all went to see them (while i was at work))
- newnative December 27, 2017 (8:20 am)
  
  I am never close enough during the alerts to make the trip to the beach. My partner, who is rarely home saw them a few weeks ago because I sent him the alert from the WSB. One of these days. . .

annika December 22, 2017 (8:56 pm)

Jaydee, another place where you can look to hear if the whales are in our neighborhood is Orca Network’s Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pg/OrcaNetwork/posts/?ref=page_internal  

You can also get sighting notices from another local group called Whale Scout. You can learn more about them and sign up for notifications here: https://www.whalescout.org/scout-notifications/

WSB December 22, 2017 (9:06 pm)

It should be noted that after we got those two tips this morning, I checked the Orca Network page and they did not have anything about sightings in the area. Don’t know if they did later, but at the time, they did not (and FB is formatted weirdly enough that I took care to go back through a couple times and make sure I wasn’t missing something). They, like we, of course, are beholden to tips. They have to cover the whole region, and we have the luxury of just reporting when they’re off, or near, West Seattle, but we very much appreciate getting the info so we can share it with folks – texting/calling is always best, 206-293-6302, as we are never out of reach of the hotline (and some of the local orca experts, I know, have texting groups so they can alert us and others simultaneously). When we get orca tips, we try to go down and see for ourselves so that we can add to the reporting, but today that wasn’t possible, so I don’t know where their path took them. – TR

annika December 22, 2017 (9:31 pm)

WSB – very true – they did not know about this sighting at all, and on their page they mentioned WSB: “Orcas were seen northbound off West Seattle around 1PM today per the WS Blog. Thank you to Kersti Muul for alerting us. This sighting is hours old, they could be anywhere by now, it’s getting dark, and not the most ideal whale watching conditions (choppy seas out there), but maybe one of you will catch a glimpse before total darkness! Bundle up…”

https://westseattleblog.com/…/west-seattle-whale-watching-…/…“

I try to check all these sources. Just thought it was worth mentioning, as it could help some readers. Whenever I see a post on ON’s facebook page saying that orcas were seen heading towards West Seattle from either the north or south, it helps me by way of a heads up, that they may be in our neighborhood soonish, or not. Of course, you never can tell – orcas can turn around and go back the other way, or mill in the same area for a long time. But it is great to have so many people involved in spreading the word of sightings – land-based whale watching has grown so much lately, for which I am thankful!