08/12/2026
On July 14 2026, Vancouver Island Whale Watch spotted CRC-22662, nicknamed Starry Knight, a young humpback whale whose return to the Salish Sea carries unusual significance.
Starry Knight is the 2024 calf of Fallen Knight, a female humpback first documented in 2003 who belongs to the Hawaiian humpback population in the North Pacific. Each year, this population undertakes a migration thousands of miles long between their winter breeding grounds in the Hawaiian Islands and summer feeding range along the coasts of Washington, British Columbia, and Southeast Alaska. Young humpbacks typically learn these migration routes from their mothers, although it can take time before researchers document their full range.
Starry Knight was last seen in the central Strait of Georgia on Sept. 12, 2025, 22 days after being successfully disentangled for the second time that summer by responders from The Whale Museum and Cascadia Research Collective. At the time, the whale was still carrying significant injuries from the two entanglements. Studies estimate that only 7% to 10% of whale entanglements are ever detected and reported, and those who are disentangled by trained responders are not guaranteed to survive the physiological stresses of an entanglement. This is why reporting sightings of a disentangled whale is so valuable, such as this July 2026 sighting of Starry Knight, confirming that this whale survived their summer of two potentially life-threatening entanglements.
In both cases, the whale appeared to have encountered trap gear, which are used to catch crustaceans and mollusks well below the ocean’s surface. Both responses to Starry Knight’s entanglements involved methods adapted from old whaling techniques used to slow down whales and keep them closer to the surface. For this work, those techniques achieve the same goal, allowing responders to document the entanglement and determine the order of steps needed to free the whale. During the response, the team attempts to collect all of the entangling material for further examination to determine how the whale got entangled and how to prevent future entanglements. The team also collects additional photographs and video to confirm that no dangerous line remains on the whale once the process is complete.
The July 14 sighting this year does not erase the seriousness of Starry Knight’s injuries or the risks posed by future entanglements. It does, however, confirm that the young whale survived the winter and returned to familiar feeding grounds. For the responders, researchers, and whale-watchers who followed the two cases, that return was welcome news.
