Location: Monterey Bay
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Risso’s Dolphins Chase Killer Whales
The local transient Killer Whales, the coastal ones, feed on Risso’s Dolphins. They’re kind of similar to a pilot whale. They’re up to 12ft long, they’re grayish white. They have a round shaped head, they don’t have the long beaks. Their head is similar to a pilot whale and they have a lot of scratch marks on them from the squid. So they are one of the most frequent dolphins we see here because of the deep water here and also because there’s lots of squid here. But there was one day and this was again about 20 years ago and it hasn’t happened since. But the killer whales here, like I said, have never been seen preying on the Risso’s dolphins. We have seen the Outer coast transients, the ones that feed on the sperm whales. And they’ve caught Risso’s dolphins twice. But the story was that the local transients we were watching and then all of a sudden this group of about 15 Risso’ dolphins came charging over and caused the group of transients to flee. It was like a reverse thing. So these Risso’s dolphins were chasing and pursuing this group of like 7 transient mammal hunting killer whales, which you wouldn’t expect because you would think the killer whales would be the aggressive mammal hunting whales. And the Risso’s chased them for about like 15, 20 minutes. And they were all porpoising, going at a very high rate, swimming out of the water. And eventually the Risso’s kind of caught up to them and surrounded them and then everybody stopped. It’s like the Risso’s caught them into almost like a net because the Rissos surrounded them and I felt, felt like they put a net around them. It was like that they had surrounded them. So the killer whales were stopped completely in the water. And they were going so fast it was hard for us to keep up on them on the boat. But they trapped these killer whales in the ocean, by surrounding for maybe 10 minutes or so. And then the killer whales broke loose and started fleeing again. And then a second time the Risso’s caught up and trapped them. And then eventually the killer whales, got away again and the Risso’s gave up. But it’s kind of reversed to what you would expect, dolphins to be chasing and attacking a killer whale and the killer whales to be so frightened by them. So that was a really interesting story that I really always remember and think it’s pretty cool. -Nancy This post was adapted from a voice recording in episode 93 of the Whale Tales Podcast, listen here
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A Triple Breach! – 27/10/25
Three Humpback whales in the Monterey Bay named CRC-12422 “Checkmarks” & her calf “Chex Mix” with a third unknown adult humpback were seen breaching, tail slapping and tail throwing for several minutes. Suddenly the two adult whales breached simultaneously not once but twice. Then the calf Chex Mix followed, coming high up out of the…
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A Great Earth Day with Orcas and Humpbacks – 22/4/25
What a great Earth Day it was today! We left the harbor and were greeted by a pod of Risso’s Dolphins. We had our looks at the pod and then proceeded to head south. Then about an hour later, the captain proceeded to turn the boat around and said they had reports of orcas. Surprisingly,…
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Baird’s Beaked Whales in Monterey – 5/23
So we went on a whale watching trip out of Monterey and it began, like most trips in Monterey Bay does, with sightings of sea otters, cormorants and sea lions in the harbor, but we did make a quick detour to see a red footed booby that’s been hanging around the harbor on a person’s…
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Monterey Killer Whales! – 24/8/24
Our trip started like any other whale watching trip out of Monterey harbor – a few sea otters and plenty of California sea lions and Brandt’s cormorants out on the breakwall. We ventured south to see what was around and plenty of Humpback Whales were definitely around. You could spot a spout from a Humpback…