Born in 1968 in Victoria, British Columbia, Mark Malleson has spent his life sailing and kayaking the waters surrounding southern Vancouver Island. Since 1997 Mark has worked as a skipper/guide for Prince of Whales Whale Watching based in Victoria, which evolved to include photographing killer whales and other marine wildlife in the trans-boundary regions of BC and Washington State.

Mark now volunteers his free time to help with research on resident, transient, and offshore killer whales that move through these waters, and his photo-identifications and log notes are shared with the Centre for Whale Research, San Juan Island, WA, and the Pacific Biological Station in Nanaimo, BC. Mark’s extensive portfolio of killer whale identification photographs resulted in his co-authoring a Transient Killer Whale guide that was published by the Centre for Whale Research in 2006.

In addition to killer whales, Mark’s dedicated interest in local whale species has led him to independently track humpback whales that seasonally return to the Victoria area. His ongoing work in cataloguing humpbacks of the eastern Juan de Fuca Strait is providing reference material for both American and Canadian whale watching industry naturalists and biologists. Mark also works as a Marine Mammal Observer on Fisheries and Oceans Canada cetacean abundance surveys that transit BC’s coastline aboard Canadian Coast Guard ships.