We're celebrating our first month

In one month, together
we mapped the Salish Sea.

Every number you'll see below was a whale somebody actually saw, reported, or tracked. Explore the live map, then scroll down for the headline numbers. One month in, and the network of eyes is already painting a picture of the Salish Sea no single operator could see alone.

25 April – 25 May 2026
The whole month, on one map

Where the whales went

Every coloured line is a chronological track from an encounter followed for two or more sightings. Switch between Bigg's killer whales and humpbacks, or hit replay to watch the month unfold.

By the numbers

A month measured in whales.

Six numbers that capture the shape of our first month. Every sighting was either community-reported, or auto-detected from the whale-watch fleet.

2,198
Whale sightings
≈ 73 every day
284
Focal-follow encounters
followed ≥ 2 sightings
57 Bigg's matrilines
31 Humpbacks identified
whales known by name
3,972km
Of whale tracks
Victoria → Calgary, and back
893h
Observation time
over 37 days of eyes-on-water
30/30
Days with at least one sighting
11 cetacean species spotted
Flukey the whale mascot

That works out to about 73 sightings every single day, with at least one cetacean encounter logged on every one of the 30 days we ran.

Species in the data

Eleven species. Six headliners.

Number of sightings across the Salish Sea over the last month, ranked by frequency.

Bigg's killer whale
1,296 Bigg's killer whales
Humpback whale
521 Humpback whales
Orca, ecotype unknown
102 Orca (ecotype unknown)
Gray whale
92 Gray whales
Pacific white-sided dolphin
72 Pacific white-sided dolphins
Minke whale
1 Minke whale
A network of eyes

Four streams flowing into one map.

Every sighting on the map came from one of four streams flowing into Whale Locator.

1,214
AIS clusters
Auto-detected when whale-watch vessels group up on a sighting.
616
Relay reports
Reposted by content admins from third-party platforms.
268
Shore reports
Sent in by community members watching from land.
100
Boat reports
Sent in by community members observing from a vessel.

117 contributors. Whale-watch crews, naturalists, shore watchers, citizen scientists, Flukey and the WL Team, all turning observations into shared knowledge.

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Live, community-powered whale & marine mammal sightings across the Salish Sea. See what's out there right now, report what you see, and help keep whales safe.

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