Sea Lion – Syndication Server

Orca ‘punt’ of sea lion reminiscent of punt for the ages

The recent “punt” of a sea lion by an orca was reminiscent of a scene caught on video 8 years ago, involving perhaps the highest orca punt on record.

On Sunday we shared images of orcas hunting (and “punting“) a sea lion off California. The photos were reminiscent of an extraordinary scene that played out eight years ago, involving an orca that punted a harbor seal 70-80 feet into the air. That story, recalled on this site last month with images and video, is posted below:

Transient orcas off the U.S. West Coast prey on marine mammals and sometimes toss the smaller animals to stun or kill them.

The accompanying images, captured by researcher Alisa Schulman-Janiger, show a male orca using his flukes to fling a harbor seal an astonishing 70 feet high.

“It’s still the most astounding thing I’ve seen,” Schulman-Janiger, co-founder of the California Killer Whale Project, told FTW Outdoors. “A momentous moment in my life.”

The harbor seal hunt, off Port Angeles in Washington State, occurred eight years ago and Schulman-Janiger shared her images Tuesday as a Facebook memory.

The event was also captured on video and that footage is posted below. (The video description places the height of the seal at 80 feet.)

The orca, or killer whale, belongs to a family cataloged as the TO69s. The standout punter is TO69C, who was about 20 years old at the time. That’s considered a young adult.

Schulman-Janiger described the event on Facebook:

“After three failed attempts, adult male T069C tossed a harbor seal more than 70 feet up into the air – sending it flying wide-eyed above the circling gulls!

“I took five photos after my highest capture, with no seal in sight; lowered my camera, looked for the seal – and saw it splash down next to the submerged orca several seconds later!

“His mom T069 and two siblings were hunting nearby; all enjoyed harbor seal for lunch.”

After the spectacular event, there was debate about the height of the seal at its apex. The 70-foot estimate is considered conservative.

Watch: Crafty sea lion swipes Cabo angler’s prized catch

Footage has surfaced showing a notorious sea lion named Pancho stealing a dorado from a fisherman who had been holding his catch.

Frequent visitors to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, know of and have probably encountered Pancho the sea lion.

The crafty pinniped is notorious for stealing fish from unsuspecting anglers after they return from a productive day at sea.

The accompanying video shows Pancho stealing a dorado, or mahi-mahi, from a Pisces Sportfishing Fleet angler who had collected his catch from a crewman.

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A post shared by Pisces Sportfishing Cabo (@pisces_sportfishing)

Pisces described the incident Tuesday via Instagram:

“You always gotta watch your back when Pancho is around! Today our anglers aboard Pisces 30’ Karina learned the hard way and lost one of their Dorado to our famous & sneaky Cabo sea lion, but lucky for them they caught another 16 Dorado today too (10 released).”

Pancho has been around for years and crews sometimes toss him bait fish while returning to the docks. But as far as Pancho is concerned, all fish belong to him if he can access them.

Watch: Panicked sea lion seeking safe haven nearly capsizes boat

In a desperate measure to escape a trio of hungry orcas, a sea lion attempted to join a couple in their small boat off Vancouver Island.

In a desperate measure to escape a trio of hungry orcas, a sea lion sought refuge on a small boat and nearly capsized the vessel while attempting to climb aboard.

The scary encounter occurred off the coast of Vancouver Island in Canada on Monday as a Prince of Whales whale-watching boat observed a group of transient killer whales, as reported by the Times Colonist and CTV News.

Mark Malleson, a guide with Prince of Whales, told the Times Colonist that other whale-watching boats were observing the orcas, along with a couple in a small boat, which stopped to let the whales pass.

“I noticed there was a sea lion beside them,” Malleson told the Times Colonist. “It was pretty worked up. At one point, I actually yelled over to them, ‘You’re going to want to get out of there.’ The sea lion was trying to take refuge on their boat.”

Malleson didn’t think the sea lion was being hunted by the orcas, but believed it “misinterpreted the situation” and “panicked.”

This led to the 600-pound-plus pinniped leaping out of the water in an attempt to board the small boat, as seen in video posted by CTV News.

“It did one jump and kind of landed on the side of boat and then it did a second one, which actually flipped the boat up on its side, and I thought they’d capsized for sure, but it righted itself,” Malleson told CTV News.

Malleson told the Times Colonist that the boat righted itself “miraculously.”

Also on FTW Outdoors: ‘Blockhead’ who posed for photo with wild horse is kicked…and cited

“The sea lion ended up back in the water and now they’re half full of water trying to motor,” Malleson told CTV News.

“If that animal had landed in the boat, somebody could have gotten seriously hurt, just from the sheer size or from the teeth.”

Fortunately, the boaters, obviously shaken, survived the ordeal, and so did the sea lion.

Photo courtesy of Prince of Whales.

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Watch: Sea lion joins dog in a closely contested game of fetch

Video: Sea lions and dogs share certain traits and among them, it seems, is that both enjoy playing fetch.

Sea lions and dogs share certain traits and among them, it seems, is that both enjoy playing fetch.

The accompanying footage shows a young sea lion watching intently from the shallows as Dave “Nelly” Nelson is about to fling a ball into the surf for his chocolate lab to retrieve.

“He’s very curious,” Nelson observes in the video, anticipating a reaction from the sea lion the moment he releases the ball.

Nelson’s young female lab, Moe, is dancing excitedly near Nelson’s feet, also anticipating the ball’s release.

Once the ball is tossed, it’s a race between pinniped and canine, with the former barking before porpoising rapidly toward the object.

But in a delightfully close competition, Moe bounds into the water and reaches the ball first, and proudly delivers it to the beach.

“She’s pretty quick,” Moe boasted to FTW Outdoors.

The footage was captured last week near 26th Street in Santa Cruz, Calif.

Nelson said the sea lion had been following close to shore as he played fetch with Moe (short for Mokuleia). The sea lion expressed interest in Moe and the game she played with Nelson.

“At one point Moe actually dropped her ball and waded out and they went nose to nose for a second – it was so cute!” Nelson said. “Moe smelled him and he gave a little loving bark and that’s why I pulled my phone out [to capture video footage], because they were totally playing.”

Nelson, a Santa Cruz-based photographer, said Moe and the sea lion continued to play fetch for much of the walk.

“Moe is the local pup down there and the [sea lion] definitely felt the good vibes she puts off,” Nelson said.

Humpback whale picks up unintended passenger; photos

A Monterey Bay photographer on Saturday shared images showing a sea lion perched on the belly of a humpback whale.

A Monterey Bay photographer on Saturday shared images showing a sea lion perched on the belly of a humpback whale. It was an unplanned ride for the pinniped, which had been feeding on the same school of anchovies the whale had been lunging after.

Yee, who captured the images in 2020, re-shared them after they popped up as a Facebook memory. “One of the weirdest moments I’ve ever experienced at sea,” he recalled.

Yee was working as naturalist for Blue Ocean Whale Watch out of Moss Landing, aboard the High Spirits, when the bizarre interaction occurred.

He told FTW Outdoors that he was unaware of the presence of the sea lion until after the trip.

Kate Cummings, High Spirits captain, asked Yee to inspect his images because she had spotted the sea lion “tumbling down the length of the whale,” she said.

Cummings posted the images to Facebook with the description:

“Today our naturalist Eric Austin Yee caught the hilarious moment when a humpback whale launched out of the water lunge-feeding for anchovies and took an unsuspecting California sea lion for a ride!

“We commonly see humpback whales and sea lions feeding together on anchovies – but the sea lions have to be alert and get out of the whales’ way! This whale was too quick!”

In an interview, Cummings said, “Apparently I was laughing so loud that the captain on the other boat could hear me. It was funny because you could tell the sea lion was fine, albeit completely surprised.”

Humpback whales can catch thousands of anchovies in one gulp. Sea lions and birds – always nearby – must exercise caution as they attempt to participate in the feast.

Watch: Sea lion catches a perfect wave, and it’s beautiful

Video footage surfaced this week showing a sea lion’s masterful ride on a small wave in turquoise waters at an unknown destination.

The sea loin’s movements are fluid and seemingly effortless during a brief exhibition that includes two aerials before the pinniped gracefully exits the wave near the shore.

The video appeared Monday on a Twitter feed operated in the Netherlands with no information beyond the title: “Sea lion riding a wave.” (At the time of this post, the footage had garnered more than 500,000 views.)

FTW Outdoors traced the video to the source, Dylan deHass, a photographer based in Australia. His footage is featured below.

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A post shared by Dylan deHaas Films 🎥 (@dylan.dehaas)

DeHass said he captured the footage with the help of a drone last August at a remote beach in Esperance, in Western Australia.

“It was alone,” deHass said. “They use the waves to travel the beach in search of food.”

Reads one of the comments (obviously from a surfer) beneath deHass’ post: “Best thing on Insta… by a country mile.”

–Image courtesy of Dylan deHass Films

Sea lion’s wild ride on humpback whale captured in photos

A naturalist on Thursday captured an amusing series of images showing a sea lion that somehow ended up on the belly of a humpback whale

A naturalist on Thursday captured an amusing series of images showing a sea lion that somehow ended up on the belly of a humpback whale.

Eric Austin Yee, who was with Blue Ocean Whale Watch in California’s Monterey Bay, said the whale was lunge-feeding on anchovies and when it surfaced he hoped simply to capture sharp images of the whale.

“I knew I caught the lunge, but I didn’t even know the sea lion was there,” Yee told For The Win Outdoors. “I didn’t realize I caught the sea lion until Kate told me to look through the photos.”

Kate Cummings, captain of Blue Ocean’s vessel, High Spirits, posted the photos to Facebook with the description:

“We commonly see humpback whales and sea lions feeding together on anchovies – but the sea lions have to be alert and get out of the whales’ way! This whale was too quick!”

Cummings told For The Win Outdoors that she could clearly see the sea lion “tumbling down the length of the whale.”

She added: “Apparently I was laughing so loud that the captain on the other boat could hear me. It was funny because you could tell the sea lion was fine, albeit completely surprised.”

When humpback whales are gorging on anchovies, the fish group tightly together in what are referred to as bait balls. When whales lunge through the bait balls, scattering the fish, sea lions and birds plunge in for their share.

In 2014, Cummings captured a spectacular image showing a pelican that had briefly become trapped in a lunge-feeding whale’s mouth (see photo below).

“We clearly saw the pelican get gobbled up, but then quickly released before the humpback submerged,” Cummings said after the incident. “The pelican looked perfectly fine – no evidence of wing damage or anything.”

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