DFO investigating third whale death off B.C.’s coast within weeks

VICTORIA — An advocate for whales says many collisions between vessels and the animals are likely undetected or unreported as Fisheries Department investigates another death of a humpback whale off B.C.’s coast.

Caitlin Birdsall, executive director of the Marine Education and Research Society, says the whale discovered Nov. 8 off Lasqueti Island in the Georgia Strait near the Sunshine Coast and is the third confirmed death since late September.

She says it’s unclear what happened to the 21-year-old whale, which the Fisheries Department has identified in photos as Polyphemus, a whale that migrates between Hawaii and waters off B.C.

Birdsall says can’t say if whale deaths are increasing because of ship strikes, because most dead whales are never found, but she can say that “there has been an increase in reporting over the last couple of months.”

The Fisheries Department says in a statement it is working to understand the latest death, noting that vessel strikes “are one of the primary threats” to humpback whales, whose numbers have come back since commercial hunting stopped in the 1960s.

A dead humpback whale was found Sept. 18 a day after a BC Ferries reported a strike, while another whale was found dead Oct. 25, shortly after the whale watching company Prince of Whales announced that one of its vessels made contact with the animal.

On Oct. 17, a high-speed ferry reported striking a humpback whale near Vancouver in English Bay. Naturalists later confirmed that the vessel had struck a calf, leaving behind a deep gash near its dorsal fin.

Birdsall says there has been an increase in reported ship strikes recently because they involved vessels whose crew “are well aware of the legal requirement to report” and who also had passengers on board to “hold them accountable.”

She says whales hit by vessels might not die right away, but instead “succumb to injuries many weeks or months” later.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 10, 2025.

Wolfgang Depner, The Canadian Press