June 2021: Jared Towers and James Pilkington, scientists with Canada's Department of Fisheries and Oceans, just spent two weeks surveying the west coast of Haida Gwaii in search of North Pacific right whales. On their second-to-last day, they finally found one. They followed it for the rest of the day and the next morning, collecting scat and food samples, photos and footage. This information will be able to tell us if it’s a known whale or a new one, the sex of the whale, and whether it’s pregnant. Jared’s post about the sighting can be found here. “It really gave me a sense of what our oceans should look like,” said Jared. ”This massive creature evolved on our coast and belongs here.” In the past decade, right whales have been spotted twice in the same area, once in 2013 and once in 2018. Photos by Jared Towers.