Tag: Monterey Bay Whale Watch

Orca ‘punts’ seabird 20 feet high in wild scene caught on video

Footage captured in California’s Monterey Bay shows one orca using its flukes to fling a common murre nearly 20 feet skyward.

Orcas that prey on marine mammals sometimes “punt” seals or sea lions high into the air to stun the pinnipeds before meal time.

On Saturday in California’s Monterey Bay, one young orca was caught on video practicing its skills on a large seabird.

The accompanying footage, captured by Evan Brodsky of Monterey Bay Whale Watch, shows the orca using its flukes to launch a common murre nearly 20 feet skyward.

https://www.instagram.com/p/C_pMYU6xOcy/

“Killer Whales vs. Common Murres,” Brodsky described via Instagram. “Safe to say the Orca won. Bad Day to be a Murre.”

The killer whales, or orcas, were observed breaching and spyhopping near whale-watching vessels, while some were busy tormenting murres.

“They don’t call them demons from hell for nothing,” Brodsky joked in reference to the orcas, which did not eat any of the murres they harassed.

Alisa Schulman-Janiger, co-founder of the California Killer Whale Project, said Brodsky’s footage revealed “a perfect example of the punting behavior.”

The researcher added, “They’re practicing for the pinnipeds when they do this. They might smack them with their heads or flukes, but the big thing is to use their flukes to throw them into the air so they’ll be stunned when they come down.”

The California Killer Whale Project identified the six-member family unit as the CA51As, led by the matriarch, nicknamed Aurora.

Brodsky captured his footage from aboard the Point Sur Clipper. The image atop this post, captured by Capt. Warren Asher of the Sea Wolf II,  shows one of the killer whales breaching next to the Point Sur Clipper.

Graphic footage shows sad reality of brutality by attacking orcas

In a rare event captured in video, a pod of killer whales—as many as 30 individuals—attacked two adult gray whales in Monterey Bay.

In a rare event captured in video, a pod of killer whales—as many as 30 individuals—attacked two adult gray whales as tourists watched aboard whale-watching boats in Monterey Bay off California.

It is unusual because killer whales typically go after the gray whale calves as mother and calf make their way in the annual migration from Baja to Alaska. Rarely do orcas attack adults.

Experts surmise that perhaps one of the adults was injured and more vulnerable to an attack, or the killer whales were starving and had no choice but try to attack.

Whatever the reason, it was a sight many whale lovers found hard to watch.

“I’m a nature lover, but sometimes nature is so harsh,” one commenter wrote on Facebook.

Evan Brodsky of Monterey Bay Whale Watch captured the incredible drone footage. His 22-minute video on YouTube shows what appears to be the initial rush of killer whales and the subsequent thrashing about. A shorter version was posted on Storyful (below).

“Our researchers and guests were able to watch this amazing event unfold for over 5 hours in Monterey Bay,” Monterey Bay Whale Watch stated Friday on Facebook, a day after the incident. “Multiple orca pods joined together to pursue these two full-grown adult Gray Whales. We were able to observe the unique hunting strategies of the pods and the rarely seen defensive strategies of the two grays.”

You can see the gray whale on the left getting most of the attention from the orcas, and eventually you see it shedding some blood, as shown in the video Brodsky shared with Storyful.

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Several times the gray whales can be seen turning upside down in an apparent move to protect their more vulnerable stomachs from the ramming orcas.

In the expanded video, the two gray whales eventually are separated, and the killer whales concentrate their energies on the weakest of the two. But Monterey Bay Whale Watch reported that “the badly wounded gray whales escaped to the shallow waters towards the beach and the Orcas backed down.”

“It’s so hard to watch. Circle of life and species survival,” one commenter on Facebook stated. “I’m still dumbfounded how those grays survived.”