A crowd of 30 killer whales met for a party in California’s Monterey Bay on Sunday.
They did belly flops into the water, slapped the waves with their flukes and spewed water from their blowholes, surprising marine biologists who had never seen the animals engage in such playful behavior for so long.
Nancy Black, who has been studying killer whales for more than 30 years, said Sunday’s show was the best orca sighting she’d ever seen. Black, a marine biologist with Monterey Bay Whale Watch and the director of the California Killer Whale Project, said the gathering was unique because the animals played in the bay for more than eight hours. Eleven family groups came together, or about 30 whales. Sometimes three or four whales would breach the water at once. Others slapped their tails against the water’s surface, wrestled with one another and swam in loops.
“Just like kids that are in a park, they get excited and play with the other kids and may be more active,” Black said. “The little ones were wrestling and rolling like a bunch of puppies.”
Little is a relative term. Orca calves can weigh up to 400lbs (180kg) at birth. Killer whales have a “matriarchal society”, Black said, and travel in groups led by a mother or grandmother. They rely on each other to hunt, share responsibilities for rearing calves and divide the burden of teaching their children. They generally travel with one family group, which can include between three and seven orcas.
That’s what made Sunday’s sighting so unusual. Although researchers know that orcas can communicate with underwater vocalizations, the sounds likely only travel about 10 miles (15km), Black said. With their territory ranging from California to Canada, Black said she doesn’t know how the creatures all decided to “hang out together” in Monterey Bay.
Packs of orcas usually travel to the bay in April and May to hunt gray whale calves. There, they “binge eat” on the calves, who are much larger than their usual prey of seals and sea lions, Black said. Sunday’s “playful celebration” likely came about because the animals were well-fed.
The nonprofit California Killer Whale Project has spent three decades cataloging the killer whales that visit Monterey Bay. Black said that she was able to recognize many of the whales in the bay on Sunday by the markings and notches in their tails.
Among them was Emma, a whale who gained notoriety among researchers for her skill at hunting gray whale calves. Emma’s family once killed a baby gray whale in 15 min, a process that usually takes two hours, Black said. Emma brought her daughter, Louise, on Sunday. Emma has previously been spotted traveling with her mother, Xena, who was not at Sunday’s gathering.
They once caught nine gray whale calves in a month. “We were amazed, like how much can they eat?” Black said.
