Editorial Assignment
T-44 Orca Whale Construction
2019 Breakwater Magazine
Rebuilding an orca whale’s skeleton so it appears to come back to life is no easy task. But on Salt Spring Island, tucked behind a row of cedars, is a workshop filled to the brim with bones from the deep, and a group of people dedicated to putting them back together again.
Mike deRoos (Pictured here) Michi Main and their team at Cetacea are slowly and carefully articulating skeletons of marine mammals from the waters around Vancouver Island, including the skeleton of transient orca T-44.
Unlike their resident cousins, transient orcas roam the coast. T-44 was spotted in North Island waters a confirmed 161 times in his 32 years of life. He was first caught on camera in the area in 1978, and while he never made a permanent home here, he died in 2009 near Port Hardy just shortly after being spotted swimming near Telegraph Cove.
