Eagle Wing Tours · Victoria, BC

A Decade of Whales

Ten seasons of whale-watching sightings — who we saw, when, and where — read from the crew's own logbooks.

Four things that stand out

Highlights from the logbooks

Our growing humpback who’s-who

A running tally of individual humpbacks we can recognise by name. This tracks who we can identify — not the population: humpbacks were already abundant when our records begin in 2016 (on ~60% of tours).

When to look

Typical season — whale-sighting success by month, averaged across all 10 years.

Who you see

Species mix over the decade

Share of tours recording each species each year. Humpbacks and Biggs orca dominate; minke, grey and fin are the rare treats.

Whale hotspots

Most-logged locations

Top Biggs orca IDs

Most-encountered matrilines & groups

Most-seen humpbacks

Named individuals, by tours

Who’s aboard

Passengers carried

Guests actually on board, from the end-of-trip headcount. Those counts began in 2019 — so 2016–2018 show booked reservations only (lighter bars). Empty and zero counts are excluded, and the figure above each bar is the share of that year’s trips that carried a logged count.

Passengers on Whale Guarantee tours

Guests aboard trips that logged a whale guarantee. Actual counts from 2019. The pre-2024 totals are small because the guarantee was logged inconsistently until ~2024 — see the Whale Guarantee card at the top — not because fewer people sailed.