Killer whale OCX043 encountered with three other whales 175km west of Bandon, Oregon, on September 9, 2021 . This whale was sighted previously 300 km offshore of Monterey Bay, California on January 23, 2020. Credit: Robert L. Pitman, Oregon State University.
“The open ocean is the largest habitat on our planet and observations of killer whales in the high seas are rare,” said first author Josh McInnes, a master’s student at the UBC Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries . “In this case, we’re beginning to get a sense of killer whale movements in the open ocean and how their ecology and behavior differs from populations inhabiting coastal areas.”
“It’s pretty unique to find a new population. It takes a long time to gather photos and observations to recognize that there’s something different about these killer whales,” said co-author Dr. Andrew Trites, IOF professor. The 49 killer whales could not be matched with any known animals through photos or descriptions. “In one of the first encounters researchers had with a pod of these oceanic killer whales, they were observed taking on a herd of nine adult female sperm whales, eventually making off with one. It is the first time killer whales have been reported to attack sperm whales on the West Coast,” said McInnes.
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