Easily one of the most epic days on the water.
We arrived at one of the jolliest bunch of orcas. Calm waters, sunshine, and over 17 orcas. Already way too ideal. Bigg’s orcas are notoriously quiet animals; despite having complex vocalizations they barely make a peep. Typically if they do, their food (other marine mammals) swims away. But optimistically we stuck the hydrophone in the water and wow. They were chatty! Squeaking and speaking. I’ve never listened to Bigg’s orcas as they vocalized. They sound like alien spaceships… And with this ruckus of splashing and vocalizations, the last thing I expected was to see an animal that orcas love to hunt, appear in the middle of the pod…
And yet emerged a massive exhale. My whale-watching brain immediately clocked it as a humpback before seeing the whale, but the logical part of my brain said no way. There’s no way a humpback (which none of us had seen in the distance) would be anywhere near this many rowdy orcas. But sure enough, this 4 year old humpback found itself in the middle of an orca party.
I’ve never seen such synchronized coordination of orcas. Doggy piling on top of the humpback.
But I think they were just excited. Their excitement lasted a few minutes as they chased this humpback around in circles. After a little bit, some of the orcas spread out. It no longer seemed like they wanted to take down this humpback. Thank goodness, I wasn’t quite ready for that…
Orca-humpback interactions are becoming more and more common in the Salish Sea. With growing populations of both species, it is inevitable. And every time it is exciting. Most of the times I’ve seen it so far, I think the humpbacks start the fight; perhaps seeking revenge for orcas having attacked the humpbacks when they were young.
It was an awesome day.
-Tobin
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