Some lucky whale watchers were treated to a once-in-a-lifetime spectacle — courtesy of Mother Nature — off the Palos Verdes coast on Tuesday, Jan. 2.
A pod of Eastern Tropical Pacific orca whales, otherwise known as killer whales, made a surprise appearance off Point Vincente — where onlookers watched as a few orcas hunted a southbound gray whale.
It was an incredibly rare sighting, according to Sarah Lesser, the Aquarium of the Pacific’s whale watch naturalist program supervisor.
In fact, the occurrence marked just the second time that orcas have been seen hunting a southbound gray whale in the last 40 years, Lesser said in a Wednesday interview.
The last time an orca was spotted hunting a southbound gray was in 2012.
But it isn’t the first time orcas have been spotted on the Southern California coast in recent weeks. Tuesday’s sighting was the seventh observed by Long Beach-based whale watching company Harbor Breeze Cruises since just Dec. 11.
“Orcas are always a rare sight wherever you see them, even in like places that they’re common,” said Capt. Tyler Askari of Harbor Breeze Cruises on Wednesday. “Here in Southern California, it’s super rare for us because they come through maybe once a year (or) every two years — it’s definitely a special treat.”
The same pod of Eastern Tropical Pacific Orcas have been making their way up and down the California coast — from Palos Verdes to Newport to San Diego — over the past few weeks. There are ten whales in total, including two calves.
Askari and Harbor Breeze Cruises have been lucky enough to observe the orcas six times since Dec. 11, and when they got the call that the pod was once again spotted on Tuesday — they immediately went out looking for them.
By 3 p.m., with dozens aboard their vessel, the crew and whale watchers alike made it to Point Vicente just in time to watch as the orcas engaged in a thirty minute battle with the gray whale and its own baby.
Gray whales, currently making their annual migration from their feeding grounds in Alaska to their breeding habitat in Mexico, use California’s coast to navigate — and are usually aplenty along the coastline from January through mid-March, according to Lesser.
The orcas, meanwhile, were successful in killing the gray whale calve — and in injuring its mother, said Askari, who watched the encounter.
The struggle continued even after the orcas killed the gray whale calve, Askari said. One female orca took its time biting at the gray whale over the thirty minutes, until eventually — they both wore out.
“It (the gray whale) trying to get away from those orcas there, but kind of failed,” Askari said, “and the orcas also seemed a little sluggish, a little tired, so they gave up the fight.”
The gray whale survived — albeit with a chunk or two missing from its fluke, and other injuries.
“They (orcas) usually go for the fluke,” Lesser said, “they pull on the tail, they pull on the flippers, they kind of flip the whale.”
And though it is typical for orcas to hunt gray whales, they don’t typically go for the largest, healthiest ones — and yesterday’s gray was quite a bit larger than the average orca, Lesser said.
“They go for either the ones who are heading back up North after they haven’t eaten for a month, or they go for the calves,” Lesser said, “There was a thought — which still could be true even after they took down the calf —that they were teaching their young how to hunt.”
Orca pods are typically matrilineal — meaning the females are in charge of the social order and structure. Mother, grandmothers, and even great-grandmother orcas are responsible for teaching calves how to fend for themselves once they’re of age.
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It could follow, Lesser said, that the orcas engaged in such a long fight with the gray whale to demonstrate hunting techniques to the two babies within the Eastern Tropical Pacific pod.
As for the whale watchers aboard the ship who watched the ordeal play out, Askari said, it was a bit of a mixed bag in terms of reactions.
While some were delighted at the opportunity to see a “killer whale” in its natural element, others were a bit shocked to see such a predation event in its rawest form.
“(But) at the end, everybody was thrilled,” Askari said. “It’s like it’s a National Geographic moment — it’s something you don’t see in real life. It’s really once-in-a-lifetime.”
As for why the Eastern Tropical Pacific pod of orcas have been so visible on the Southern California coast since mid-December — experts don’t have any concrete answers.
Orcas are notoriously mysterious animals, who make sporadic appearances in areas highly trafficked by people, and whose motivations are never entirely clear.
“We don’t really know why,” Lesser said,” and that’s sort of the interesting thing.”
The chief theory, though, is that Southern California’s large common and bottlenose dolphin populations are an attractive offering to orcas — the apex predator of the sea, known for hunting everything from fish to whales bigger than them.
A pod of Eastern Tropical Pacific orcas traveled to Newport Beach on Dec. 17, 2023, continuing their feast on dolphins just a few miles from the coast. (Photo courtesy of Mark Girardeau/ Newport Coastal Adventure)
“Most animals are gonna go where the food is,” Lesser said, “and if there’s a large supply of their food, that is where the animal is going to travel.”
But California’s dolphin populations are resident, meaning they don’t have a major migration, and they’re local all of the time.
It’s unclear why the orcas aren’t spotted more frequently, even though a good source of food is available for them in California’s coastal waters year round.
“It could be that they just kind of came up as they do every so often, and then they just happened to see a lot of our dolphins,” Lesser said. “That’s sort of what we’re kind of trying to figure out to. We sort of have these ideas, but we’re not really sure.”
But whatever for whatever reason the orcas have decided to stick around in Southern California, Lesser said whale watching enthusiasts should take advantage while they still can.
“We do not know what they’re going to do next; if they’re going to hang around or if they’re going to leave,” Lesser said. “I encourage people to get on the water — there’s always stuff to see, whether it’s orcas or gray whales or anything else. Our coastline is great for this.”
