Killer whales.
- Bob Perry
- Dec 13, 2025
- 2 min read
2025 12–13 SB Channel
As often happens during the month of December, we encountered killer whales again today. Seas were very calm, and skies were overcast, so it was generally cool out on the water. Sightings for the day: 6 humpback whales, 2000 common dolphins and 4 killer whales.
Reports had circulated around the whale watch fleet that the humpback whales had moved to the eastern channel, and so Captain Eddie and the crew headed that direction. When we were still W of Platform Gilda, we found 3 humpback whales. The first sighting consisted of 2 relatively uncooperative humpbacks that had very long dive times. We cut short our observations of a third, single whale, because we received word of possible killer whales.
Soon thereafter, we encountered a megapod of common dolphins moving east. As we watched them, out of nowhere, 4 killer whales (2 cow-calf pairs; see NOTE at bottom of the page) popped-up in the middle of the dolphin megapod, sending panicked dolphins away at high speeds. A solitary dolphin had been singled out and surrounded by orcas. We watched an apparent “hunt” taking place for a while before we realized there was a single calf doing the attacking. This went on for a few minutes with no bloodshed. Perhaps it was a training or practice hunt. We went on to watch all four killer whales which came close to the boat once or twice randomly.
On the way home, we saw three more humpback whales that were throwing their tails around. Our friend and humpback whale ID expert, Susanne, identified one of them as Mopsy, calf of Flopsy, who we have seen recently.
You never know what mother nature has in store.
Bob Perry
NOTE:
Alisa Schulman-Janiger of the California killer whale project supplied the following killer whale identification notes from today’s encounter:
“CA51A2 Andi, her daughter CA51A2A Astrid - who were with (Frosty's mom) CA216C and her calf CA216C2.
Very cool: 2 young moms and their young calves hunting a common dolphin together!”
