So the reason the old video suddenly went viral? Because today, March 13, 2015 another group of whales made their way into the same area in Burrard Inlet past the Lion’s Gate Bridge. This time no video was posted so people hearing about it have been getting the 2011 video when they go online to see if there’s one of today’s whales.
Today the four whales in the harbour were doing what you might expect them to be doing — looking for a meal. There are plenty of seals in the area right now and that draws them in close to the bridge and the shoreline and boats and the human beings. Just in case we could be wrong about that, it was confirmed by Vancouver Aquarium research biologist Chad Nordstrom.
“They regularly spend a lot of time right close to shore in coastal areas, and our best guess is that they’re hunting harbour seals,” Nordstrom told CTV News today.
CTV also reported that Vancouver police took a group of marine biologists out in a department boat and they “monitored the pod’s journey through the inlet.” It is the third time in four years whales have come that close into the harbour.
The occasion four years ago was the one in which the video of the whales was taken. A boat operated by Bon Chovy Fishing Charters encountered the whales, including a calf, surfacing and swimming in the harbour, one coming very close to the boat. They filmed the creatures, with bits of commentary, and put it up on YouTube.
It had hundreds of hits before today but is now up to 30,000 and counting.
