Killers confronted: humpback whale turns on orca pod in rare encounter
Footage shows five-year-old humpback in Canadian waters stalking and ambushing group more used to role of attackers
Richard Luscombe
@richlusc
Tue 19 Apr 2022 11.16 EDT
An aggressive humpback whale appeared to turn the tables on a pod of orcas off the Canadian coast, stalking then ambushing the group that more usually would have been attacking it.
The rare occurrence took place on the Salish Sea between British Columbia and Washington state and was witnessed and recorded by enthralled tourists on a whale-watching trip.
“There’s something happening in front of us that hasn’t been seen before,” Olivia Esqueda, an environmentalist, told CHEK News.
. . .
Esqueda described a 20-minute encounter in which a five-year-old humpback of undetermined sex, named Valiant, took on the nine-strong transient pod of Bigg’s orca.
More:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/apr/19/humpback-whale-orca-video-valiant
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Naturalist, whale-watching guides astounded by humpback whale chasing after orcas in Salish Sea
Veteran whale observers say it's more common to see killer whales acting aggressively
CBC News · Posted: Apr 17, 2022 5:29 PM PT | Last Updated: April 17
- click for image -
https://headtopics.com/images/2022/4/21/cbc/naturalist-whale-watching-guides-astounded-by-humpback-whale-chasing-after-orcas-in-salish-sea-cb-1516854212205764613.webp
A five-year-old humpback whale named Valiant, left, encounters a transient orca, also known as a Bigg's killer whale, on April 12 in the Salish Sea off Vancouver Island. (Ellie Sawyer/Maya’s Legacy Tours)
A scientist who set out with a group of tourists for a whale-watching tour on the Salish Sea was thrilled by a rare sight last Tuesday — a humpback whale following and then confronting a pod of transient orcas.
U.S. naturalist Olivia Esqueda witnessed the conflict in the Georgia Strait, and said she hasn't ever seen anything like it.
"The humpback whale was kind of trailing up behind them," she said. "We all of a sudden saw the next surface with the humpback right in the middle of all the killer whales."
For her, the experience during a whale-watching trip from Washington's Friday Harbour is something she won't forget.
More:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/humpback-whale-filmed-following-orca-pod-in-salish-sea-1.6359150
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