We have been observing an incredible number of Bottlenose Dolphins in Algoa Bay of late, on one cruise up to 1700 in five pods! No question about us being “The Bottlenose Dolphin Capital of the World”! When we left port recently with a boat full of cruise liner guests, we observed Bottlenose Dolphins “flying” past the harbour entrance. Our first thoughts were, I wonder what was chasing them?!
We called up the boats who run supplies out to visiting ships and sure enough, they told us they had sighted two killer whales earlier that morning. They were heading towards King’s Beach. We sped off towards Cape Recife via the beachfront. Our lookouts had their eyes peeled as we anticipated something out of the ordinary.

Eventually, as we passed the Bell Buoy, the lookout screamed, Killer Whales at 2 o clock! Our eagle eyes were none other than Machi Yoshida aka “Machi moto”, who is an expert in killer whale behaviour in Bremer Canyon off Western Australia and Japan. I met her there last year and invited her to come and witness our sardine run, still one of the top marine tourist events on the planet.

Initially it was just a large male and a female, more than likely his mother. The males are really mommy’s boys, spending their entire lives with the matriarch. Eventually, they were joined by another two, and then some more. After Machi had analysed her images, she confirmed a family of nine killers, made up of four males, three females and two calves. The males were probably all brothers.

When I got home, I dived into my Killer Whale catalogue and sure enough there they were. We last saw this pod during March 2022, two years ago at the similar time of the year. If you go to Ziggy’s Restaurant at Pine Lodge, you will see the A0 canvas of the large male that I donated to them. Can anyone come up with a name for the male and thus the pod?

Back to the Bottlenose Dolphins being in such a hurry . . . yes indeed, they had definitely been in close contact with the killers, although we did not see a predation. We have observed predations on both Common and Bottlenose dolphins, a Bryde’s whale and last year they took out an unidentified shark. What an incredible Algoa Bay we share with these amazing creatures!

-Raggy Charters
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