School is in session, and today’s lesson is all about learning through play! On our September 16 Half-Day Tour from Edmonds, guests and crew enjoyed a delightfully playful scene: T36B4 Auk (born in 2024) and T36B1A Maple (born in 2025) playing hard in Port Susan while the rest of the T36 pod watched. I don’t think we’ve seen quite as much orca belly as we did on this one day alone — the littles were breaching (both forwards and backwards), tail slapping, porpoising, swimming upside down, and more
The protected waters of Port Susan in Puget Sound made for the perfect spot for the little tikes to let out some zoomies and practice some orca behaviors on their own. At one point, the duo practiced pulling each other by the fluke (tail), a behavior that will likely come in handy in the future when they start participating in pod hunts. With four generations of orcas traveling together in the T36 pod, it’s so fun to watch the calves be calves!
