Guide · Best time

Bremer Bay orca season: when the canyon orcas are there

The killer whales off Bremer Bay gather in late summer and autumn. Here is what Tourism WA, the shire and the scientists say about the months, and how to choose your date.

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Editorial team, bremer-bay-orcas.comUpdated October 24, 2026Read time: 6 min19 sources

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The short answer

01Tour months: Full-day canyon boats run from mid-January to mid-April.¹
02The core: The Shire of Jerramungup names February and March.²
03The research: Orcas were logged on 91.5% of 141 study trips, January to April.³
04Off season: The whales may stay year-round, but big groups show mostly in summer and autumn.⁴
05No promise: No source and no listing guarantees a sighting on a given day.

The months the canyon boats go out

The Bremer Bay orca season is short and sharply defined. Tourism Western Australia says full-day canyon boat tours run from Bremer Bay between mid-January and mid-April, to a canyon it places 70 kilometres offshore from the town.¹ Its whale-watching guide puts the season between January and April and calls the gathering the biggest congregation of orcas in the southern hemisphere.⁵ Outside those weeks there is simply no scheduled trip to the canyon to book.

The local council narrows it further. The Shire of Jerramungup, which looks after Bremer Bay, says February and March are the months that bring orcas to the canyon.² Read together, the two sources give you a simple rule: the boats run from the middle of January to the middle of April, and the heart of the season falls in February and March.

That still leaves room to plan around school holidays, work and the drive. If your dates are fixed early in the year, look at late January or the first weeks of April. If you can pick freely, aim for the middle of the season, when both official sources agree the orcas are there. Book early either way, because the canyon trips only run for a few months each year.

The whale year

From the first orca boats to the spring wildflowers

Mid-January

Canyon boats start

Full-day trips begin from Bremer Bay.¹
February

The heart of the season

The shire names February and March for orcas.²
Mid-April

Last canyon trips

The season of full-day boats ends.¹
June to October

Southern right whales

Point Ann platforms are popular in these months.⁶
September

Wildflowers

The national park's wildflower peak runs to November.⁷

What the research says about the best time to see orcas at Bremer Bay

The best evidence on timing comes from a peer-reviewed study run from ordinary whale-watching boats. Over the field seasons of 2014, 2015 and 2016, researchers joined 141 trips between January and April and recorded killer whales on 91.5% of them.³ Those boats left Bremer Bay and headed about 50 km south-east, out over the deep water.⁸

That figure is a record of past trips, not a promise for yours. It describes three particular seasons and the boats the scientists rode on. The orcas move with their prey, the weather can keep a boat in harbour, and a day with no sighting is always possible. Still, it tells you that on those study trips a sighting was the rule rather than the exception.

A later paper from Edith Cowan University adds the wider picture: the Bremer Sub-Basin supports the largest documented aggregation of killer whales in Australian waters.⁹ The same team found that killer whale numbers peaked where the water was cool and productive, which the authors link to seasonal upwelling of nutrient-rich water that feeds abundant prey.¹⁰

Month by month

Daylight and rain days on the south coast

Hours without sunDays with precipitationSeason

Per month: the dark hours in mid-month, which we worked out for Bremer Bay's latitude, and rainy days (1 mm and up) in Bureau of Meteorology statistics for Hopetoun North, 1996 to 2026.¹³

The year at a glance

Temperatures, rain and the orca boats by month

Month	Daylight (h)	Darkness (h)	High / low	Wet days	Canyon orca tours
Jan	14.2	9.8	25 / 15 °C	3	from mid-Jan
Feb	13.3	10.7	26 / 16 °C	3	tours
Mar	12.4	11.6	25 / 15 °C	5	tours
Apr	11.3	12.7	23 / 13 °C	6	to mid-Apr
May	10.4	13.6	21 / 11 °C	7
Jun	9.9	14.1	19 / 9 °C	9
Jul	10	14	18 / 8 °C	10
Aug	10.8	13.2	19 / 8 °C	10
Sep	11.8	12.2	20 / 9 °C	8
Oct	12.9	11.1	21 / 10 °C	7
Nov	13.9	10.1	23 / 12 °C	5
Dec	14.4	9.6	24 / 14 °C	3

Highs, lows and the number of rainy days (1 mm and up) are Bureau of Meteorology averages for Hopetoun North, 1996 to 2026; mid-month daylight is our own sum for Bremer Bay.¹³ Season according to Tourism Western Australia.¹

Three windows

Start, middle or end of the season

Longest days

Late January

The season opens

Boats: From mid-month
Daylight: 14.2 hours
High: 25.2 °C

See live dates

The core

February and March

The shire's orca months

Boats: Running
High in February: 25.5 °C
Rain days: 3 to 5

See live dates

Cooler days

Early April

The season closes

Boats: To mid-month
High: 23.2 °C
Rain days: 6

See live dates

Decision helper

Which part of the season suits you

Match your plans to the orca calendar

I want the core weeks I can only travel in January I can only travel in April I am coming in winter My dates may change

February or March

The Shire of Jerramungup names these months.²

Go late in the month

The canyon boats start from mid-January.¹

Go early in the month

The trips run until mid-April.¹

Watch southern right whales

They are seen along the coast from July to October.²

Book with free cancellation

Free cancellation on the booked trip stays open until 24 hours ahead.

These large aggregations are observed mostly during summer and autumn, though may occupy these waters year-round.

Flinders University (research release on Totterdell et al., Marine Mammal Science)Source 4

Why the orcas come in late summer

Researchers at Flinders University describe the population as more than 140 known animals, found mainly in the Bremer Sub-Basin.⁴ Its large aggregations are seen mostly in summer and autumn, although the whales may use these waters all year.⁴ In other words, the season is when the groups are big, close together and easy to find from a day boat.

The reason lies under the surface. Parks Australia explains that the canyons of the Albany group funnel cool, nutrient-rich water upwards, which boosts marine life and in turn feeds marine mammals and seabirds.¹¹ The Bremer Canyon is one of the few in that group that cuts into the continental shelf, giving deep water a pathway onto the shelf.¹²

Think of the late-summer orca gathering as the top of a food chain switching on. Squid, fish and deep-diving whales are drawn to the productive water, and the killer whales follow. That is also why the trips run so far offshore: the action is over the canyon heads, not along the beaches of the town.

Checklist

Before you pick your date

Plan

Pick a date between mid-January and mid-April
Keep a spare day in Bremer Bay for wind
Reserve now and pay later to hold a seat

Pack

Warm clothing for the deck
Hat, sunglasses and sunscreen
Seasickness tablets, taken early

Video

Hunting for orcas in Bremer Bay, Western Australia

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Weather and sea in the orca months

The orca months fall in the warm half of the year on the south coast. At Hopetoun North, the coastal weather station our climate figures come from, January averages a high of 25.2 °C and a low of 15.3 °C.¹³ February is a touch warmer, with an average high of 25.5 °C.¹³ By April the average high has eased to 23.2 °C.¹³

Rain is rarely the problem in this window. January brings 3 rainy days of 1 mm or more on average at the station, and April brings 6.¹³ Out at sea, though, a warm day in town can feel very different. Wind, spray and the long swell of the Southern Ocean make the deck cooler than the thermometer suggests, and the swell matters far more to your comfort than the air temperature.

The bright months bring strong sun on the water. Australia's radiation agency ARPANSA recommends sun-protective clothing, a hat, sunglasses, sunscreen and shade whenever the UV index reaches 3 or more.¹⁴ On a long day at sea that applies from the first hour. The booked expedition itself asks guests to bring warm clothing and comfortable shoes.

Early, middle or late in the season

Every part of the season has a case. Late January opens the boat calendar and often comes with the longest days, about 14.2 hours of daylight in mid-January at Bremer Bay's latitude.¹³ It suits travelers who combine the trip with a summer beach holiday on the south coast.

February and March are the months the shire names for the orcas.² The famous hunts the scientists described also happened in this window: beaked whale attacks were watched on 25 February 2014, 8 February 2015 and 18 February 2016.¹⁵ ¹⁶ ¹⁷ In late March 2019 a research survey recorded the first known case of killer whales killing an adult blue whale.¹⁸

April closes the season. The boats run until about the middle of the month, and the average high at Hopetoun North drops to 23.2 °C.¹ ¹³ If you are flexible, middle-season dates give you the most margin: a trip lost to wind can be moved to a later day while the orcas are still around.

Plan a spare day around the boat

The single best piece of advice for the season is to leave slack in your plans. Bremer Bay is a long way from anywhere, the boats sail into open ocean, and the skipper decides on the morning whether conditions allow the trip. A spare day in town lets you move to the next departure without cancelling the whole journey.

The booked expedition offers free cancellation up to 24 hours before and lets you reserve now and pay later. That flexibility helps when your travel dates are not yet fixed. It lasts 8 hours on board the Alison Maree from the Bremer Bay boat harbour, and the listing gives no fixed season or departure time, so check live dates before you plan the drive.

Give yourself a quiet evening before the trip. The day starts with a safety briefing, then a cruise of around 1.5 hours out to the canyon, and seasickness tablets are highly recommended by the operator. Sleep well, eat lightly and pack the night before, so the morning at the harbour is calm.

Outside the orca months

If your trip falls outside the season, the coast still has whales. Southern right whales are seen along the coast from July to October, says the Shire of Jerramungup.² DBCA, the state parks service, says the whale platforms at Point Ann in Fitzgerald River National Park are popular from June to the end of October.⁶

Spring brings another reason to come. The shire says the wildflower season in the national park peaks from September to November.⁷ Along the whole Western Australian coast, Tourism WA estimates that 45,000 humpback whales migrate from May to December.¹⁹

None of that replaces the canyon orcas, but it means a winter or spring visit is not wasted. You can watch southern rights from the cliffs, walk among the wildflowers, and come back in the summer for the killer whales.

Pick your date