This encounter happened in Canada, in the Johnston strait area. I was on a boat, and we saw the T059’s doing this kind of classical celebration they do after they hunt and eat. So they were breaching. They were celebrating, after they were doing this celebration, and they were breaching. And then I believe it was the T060s that arrived, like on the left side, like they were far, they were probably, like, I don’t know, like, more than 800 meters away. Yeah, more at least one kilometer away from the T059’s and then the T059 started swimming towards the T060s. And then, like we all were looking at that happening, but then I heard a splash at the bow of the boat, and I saw the splash also when I turned and then I saw this Orca. There were two orcas, actually. And one was, like, really curious and got close to the boat and started vocalizing. The other one just stayed, like, a few meters away from the one that started vocalizing. She started vocalizing that Orca, T060F. Tigris is her name.

And the other one that was with her, I don’t know who it was. And yeah, she started vocalizing for yeah, like, almost like, 30 seconds, like, yeah, 28 seconds, something like that. And then she swam under the boat, but then, not really under the boat, like close to the boat.

And then after she vocalized, she tails slapped like two or three or three times, yeah, it’s, this is just a human interpretation, but it’s sort of like if she emphasized whatever she said, and yeah, this was all without a hydrophone, and we could hear her like yeah from the surface really well, and loud, and yeah. And then when she did yeah, that then she swam towards the rest of her family to join them.

-Vane

This post was adapted from a voice recording in episode 72 of the Whale Tales Podcast, listen here.