Orca attack

Just watched the news they had a video of 6 Killer whales attacking a baby grey off Montery, unreal they said the mother fought them off for almost an hour. If you look on the right side of the screen it looks like one goes airborne. WOW

From what I understand they ambush them as the grey's cross the canyon. The orcas ambush from below.
Kinda freaky....very freaky.

-Brian G

I saw the same thing last year while on a PB. Afetr about 45 minutes we left. No carnage, but the baby whale was definitely distressed. I counted 9 different Orcas. I seemed the adults were teaching the younger ones how to hunt. It looked like they were trying to drown the baby whale. I am sure they took care of it later. Pretty amazing site to see.

orcas are a peculiar animal. i heard that the ones we see down this way are transient orcas which go about spending their lives hunting in a large area all up and down the coast unlike those who are resident in puget sound. from what i have heard is that when these orcas do kill a whale the only part that is consumed is the tongue of the whale, nothing else. some scientists believed that these transient orcas which venture far have a chemical imbalance in their brain which makes them agressive. correct me if i am wrong but this is just what i have heard from tv and whale watching guides. lets eat some tongue! i'll take mine fried up with some butter and pepper! yummy!

They seem smart enough to not hit a kayak and have been known to kill GWS, so I'm firmly
in the pro-orca camp.

but those grey whales are so gentle and friendly, it's heartbreaking to think of some poor mom
whale fending off a pack of orcas on her ownsome and then seeing her baby killed after
swimming with it 1000 miles up the coast.  nature is cruel at times.

my whole family got to touch some grey whales (mom and baby)  in puerto lopez mateo,
(mag bay) they are super gentle. man, they are big tho!

J

have a chemical imbalance in their brain which makes them agressive.

Maybe that's what right or wrong with some of us, put a rod or paddle in ours hands and our whole focus changes.
I'm sure that's what the PETA freaks think.

Those things are scary!! 

i think its always possible that wild animals can be agressive but remember the nice whales at marine world? what happened to the good ol days of people gettin picked out of a crowd to pet them?

I don't have all the specifics but the original name for Orca was something that translated into french  I believe as whale killer because the people who knew and lived near them often saw the Orcas hunt whales. Killer whale was a translation mistake.
Also to my knowledge with the exception of orca in captivity there has never been an attack on humans. One boy was charged but not grabbed while swimming in Alaska a couple of years ago; but there are no reported attacks or even grabs by orcas on humans in the wild. That being said I'd be more comfortable knowing the orca swimming up to me in the kayak was a resident and not a transient because the transient orcas tend to be more aggressive. I think I have heard that resident populations tend to be more docile because they stay in the same area and hunt only certain foods depending on the time of year. The transient populations often do not compete with the resident populations for the same food source so the transient populations are under more pressure to find food.
With either population I'd be more afraid of an Orca showing off and breaching right onto the kayak then just outright attacking.

Jeff

There is a report of a knee boarder hit at big sur rivermouth in the 80's. (I think)

he was not seriously injured.  conical teeth holes were the identifier.

I don't have a reference, I'd dig it up, but I just don't think they are going to
make the same kind of mistake that a GWS makes, or they are more selective or
whatever.

But a 31 foot long 8 ton animal could punt a 300lb 15 foot kayak pretty far if
it wanted to I'm sure.

J

There is a report of a knee boarder hit at big sur rivermouth in the 80's. (I think)

he was not seriously injured.  conical teeth holes were the identifier.

J

I wonder if it wasn't actually a pilot whale? Has anyone seen the footage of the pilot whale grabbing the snorkeler and pulling her down by the leg?

Jeff

Here are some links to Orcas in Monterey Bay.  Randy and I encountered a hunting pod in Carmel Bay one time.  They vibed WAY differently than the ones in the WA sound area.  We backpaddled steadily........

I read that many of the resident types are fish eaters(salmon) unlike these southern transients who eat mammals exclusively.  It seems that these like to eat sea lions..........

http://www.montereybaywhalewatch.com/Features/KillerWhalePredation0210.htm
http://www.montereybay.com/creagrus/MtyBayrarecetaceans.html
http://montereybay.com/creagrus/MtyBayOrcaattack.html

According to Black's lecture (she is the local expert) they eat more than the tongue...
The amounts of the carcasses that the whales fed on ranged from just the tongue and blubber around the lower jaw to extensive feeding with complete stripping of the blubber. The tongue weighs as much as 400 Kg and the blubber over several thousand Kg. Sometimes the force exerted by the Killer Whales was enough to decapitate a calf.

Pat

 The shows I've seen on Orca's basically say that there traditional food has been fished or hunted to low levels by, you guessed it, US! So, the whales have been changing their tactics and food. There are different Orca pods that are culturally different from each other. Some stay near shore and eat salmon others stay out and eat sharks, whales and whatever.

Some one should show them how efficiently hunt sea lions and seals.

I've seen a National Geographic program where the Orca's would charge the surf to snatch seals on their way into the beach.  They'd be in 6" of water, about 90% exposed, with seal in mouth and thrashing it till it died.  Then they'd back themselves into the water.  It was amazing footage. 

I have that on tape. actually the whole david attenborough series.

sometimes they took the pup back out live and used it for teaching purposes.

pretty brutal. absolutely stunning footage tho.

J