u/Queasy-Emu6531

Helmed by older female (and likely mother and grandmother) 027 Vaila, these killer whales spent hours scouring the shoreline for seals in gorgeous evening light. In recent years, more and more photographers and wildlife enthusiasts have documented orcas around Shetland, who appear to be thriving and are distinct and isolated from Scotland's other orcas, the West Coast Community. Many of these orcas (but not all of them!) make seasonal movements between Iceland and Scotland. Photos by delphinus_darran.

These killer whales weren't afraid to get into the shallows for their meal, and then they shared it! The populations of orcas found in the Northeast Atlantic are fascinating: many orcas in both Iceland and Norway feed on both fish and marine mammals (without the diet-mediated social segregation of North Pacific orcas), but they don't share any calls, so they probably haven't been in major social contact for generations, although there may be a small amount of gene flow occurring between the two populations. Additionally, Norwegian orcas have never been identified feeding on pinnipeds in Scotland, whereas several families of Icelandic orcas seem to make yearly excursions to Scotland for that purpose. There's so much potential for fascinating research on these whales, and I'm so excited for the whale-watching community and scientists to learn more about their distinctive culture in the coming years. Video by Mirjam x Iceland Undone.

Arraial do Cabo is well-known for its biodiversity; recently, that biodiversity has included killer whales! This grouping appears to contain at least one calf. There's still much to be uncovered about the orcas seen in Brazilian waters, but they're seen there often enough to attract scholarly and public interest, including this news report that aired just two days after this video was recorded and provides a different view of (likely) the same individuals. This scientific article provides a comprehensive overview of the knowledge we have so far about these mysterious killer whales.

Video by Por aí em Arraial do Cabo. (p.s. apologies for my poor cropping on my last post; I get so excited when I see something I want to share here that sometimes my editing skills go out the window, lol)

From Península Valdés Orca Research:

>Seguimos con presencia de orcas, y esta vez en la zona de la lobería en Punta Bermeja, Golfo San Matías, Provincia de Río Negro. Gracias a las imágenes de Nicolás El Winnie de 10 de septiembre, se pudo identificar al grupo de Maga (7). Compartimos las hermosas imágenes de Winnie. Gracias como siempre a nuestros amigos de Río Negro!

We continue to see orcas, this time off the sea lion colony at Punta Bermeja, in the Gulf of San Matías, Río Negro Province. Thanks to images by Nicolás “El Winnie” from 10 September, it was possible to identify Maga’s group (7). We are sharing Winnie’s beautiful images. Thanks, as always, to our friends in Río Negro!

PTN-004 Maga and her family are typically associated in our minds with Punta Norte in Chubut Province, where they practice their world-famous intentional stranding technique to feed on pinnipeds; during this sighting, though, they were over 200 kilometers northward.

From Dr. Heike Vester, founder of the research organization Ocean Sounds:

>We found two groups of orcas socialising, playing and mating not far from Bodø in the Vestfjord of Norway. Watching them, taking notes and pictures and collecting sound recordings (that is how we study whales in Ocean Sounds), we saw them feeding in between the social actions. The pictures later revealed that they were actually feeding on mackerels!
This is the first time we could document orcas feeding on mackerel in Norway and it fits our earlier observations in 2011 of orcas feeding on salmon. See our publication “First record of killer whales (Orcinus orca) feeding on Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) in northern Norway suggests a multi-prey feeding type Heike Vester and Kurt Hammerschmidt. 
Again it shows how flexible orcas can be when it comes to food and they seem to be more opportunistic than in other areas in the world, for example North-West Pacific. This gives hope in very fast changing world🩵

Food is a critical part of orca cultures worldwide; some orca communities teach their young to focus on a highly specific food source, while others are less selective, although family groups within communities often have slightly different preferences. Like humans, orca culture is sophisticated yet dynamic, influenced by the knowledge of elders, changing environmental conditions, and individual personalities.

A rare white humpback whale has been spotted along with their normally-pigmented mother! It's impossible to know if their coloration is caused by albinism or another condition without observing the color of their eye (which albinism would make pink) or conducting a genetic test; albinism is likely the cause, though, as in species that are darker in color albinism often produces this sort of creamy yellowish coloration. In any case, they are a very special whale🤍They were observed by the research station Whale Point, who had this to say:

>On a very foggy Tuesday morning Shelby Fisher notified us of a resighting of the white humpback whale “Spirit” just outside the Gitga’at harvesting camp, Kyel. This time we were very fortunate to not only get a fluke shot of Spirit but also a perfect ID shot of her/his mother. The mother is BCX 2002, Kuleana. They travelled all the way into Taylor Bight and passed our Lab very closely on their way west.
We are grateful to Shelby for notifying us and for Janie of BC Whales for her help identifying the mother.

Check the fundraiser out here, and learn more about PacMam here.

Dr. Dave Ebert, a shark scientist at San José State University's Moss Landing Marine Laboratory and the "Lost Shark Guy", recently revealed that a megamouth shark (Megachasma pelagios) washed up in western South Africa. The only other sighting of this little-known species in the country was twenty-four years ago, and they're rarely seen anywhere else in the world, so this is a monumental moment. I recommend this article if you'd like to learn more about megamouths, as well as this one (note that its map has not yet been updated to include this second South African sighting).

These orcas were observed by scientist Tatiana Ivkovich and her crew at the Far East Russia Orca Project and filmed via drone. Members of at least six family groups were present!

B-007/IB28 Scarlet (spelled in some sources as Scarlett) was spotted with a newborn by her side yesterday by 5emotions, a boat tour company out of Marina de Portimão. The Iberian community of orcas inhabit the Strait of Gibraltar and surrounding waters and are critically endangered, with an even smaller population than the Southern Residents, so every new birth is a cause for joy, especially considering how terrible the recent gunshot wounds on Toni are. Here's a report from photographer David Escudos:

>Today, the 5emotionsalgarve team spotted three killer whales from the Iberian population: Pingu, Toni, and Scarlet. During the afternoon, we observed Scarlet moving away from the group while Toni and Pingu drew the attention. IB28 Scarlet—born in 2011 and orphaned over a decade ago—was one of the first to interact with boats back in 2019, though we were unable to track her for the remainder of the day. On a later outing, we re-established visual contact with her at 6:30 PM. This time, IB28 Scarlet was accompanied by a companion—and yes, right beside her was her first calf! They were born that afternoon, between 2:00 PM and 6:00 PM, near Portimão. Our team was fortunate enough to capture the first records of the newest member of the Iberian orca population: IB62, born on August 19, 2026, off the Algarve coast (specifically near Portimão). This fantastic record is a moment that truly stands out for the entire team of biologists at 5emotionsalgarve.

(I don't speak Portuguese, so this translation may contain inaccuracies)

Doug Davis of Prince Rupert Adventure Tours took these photos and shared them via Jenny Körner's Killer Whales of BC page. This matriline was active during both of their sightings; they breached, traveled closely together, and moved apart, possibly for foraging. R Clan is the smallest of the three acoustic clans of Northern Residents, but like the other NRKW clans has been steadily growing. R Clan has some beautiful calls!

(I literally just posted here yesterday, but as soon as I learned that this elusive family had been recently sighted, I knew folks here would be interested)

This fascinating event, which took place as part of a larger predation attempt, was observed by Monterey Bay Whale Watch:

>"We had an absolutely crazy morning on the bay today with a pod of beloved killer whales known as the CA140Bs, led by matriarch CA140B “Louise”. The pod is comprised of Louise and her four female offspring; CA40B1 “Stinger”, CA140B2 “Bee”, CA140B3 “Buzz”, and CA140B4 “Bumble”! Male CA50B “Jimmy” was also in the area more out west in the morning and then reunited with the pod during our 1:30PM trip. The all female pod was very busy hunting Long-beaked common dolphin this morning! This is something we rarely see here as the common dolphin are not frequently seen in our area. The pod took down several adult dolphins, but the fascinating (yet heartbreaking) part of these encounters was the presence of a very, very young common dolphin calf. Although hard to believe, the CA140Bs did not hunt and kill the dolphin calf, and the young one stayed with the pod from around 10:30 in the morning when the hunt first started, until around 3:30PM when the CA140Bs seemed to be too fast for the common dolphin calf to keep up with, and the little dolphin was left behind. It is very hard to know exactly what was going on in these intelligent cetaceans minds today, and why they didn’t seem to end up hunting the calf, but it was an intriguing (yet sad) thing to encounter and study. Rare behaviors documented during encounters like this are valuable for our colleagues at the California Killer Whale Project!"

Looking at these photos, I'm reminded of the behaviors of the Icelandic orcas who have aggressive interactions with pilot whales, while also pair-swimming with pilot whale calves. Yet another glimpse into the complex social dynamics, empathetic capabilities, and brilliant hunting techniques of the ocean's top predator!

While killer whales are infrequently but regularly seen between March and May near São Miguel Island, one of the easternmost islands of the Azores, these orcas were substantially farther west than those sightings and were actively moving in a westerly direction! Little is known about the culture and ecology of orcas in the Azores, although they have been observed hunting sea turtles, fin whales, and possibly sharks. This is to be expected, considering what we know about orcas in tropical & subtropical regions in other parts of the world: they typically follow a more generalist diet than temperate and polar orcas, likely because the generally lower productivity of these warm waters means they can't afford to be quite so discerning. These photographs were taken by Carlos Mendes, who uploaded them yesterday with the following caption:

>Eeiiiiiii Orcaaaas à vista!!
Carlos e Sofia são os skippers da Extremocidente, após o passeio da costa Nordeste das Flores, rumaram a ilha do Corvo e após algumas milhas foram surpreendidos pelo um grupo de Orcas que se deslocavam para Oeste rumo a América. O grupo era constituído entre a 5 a 7 indivíduos, entre os quais um muito juvenil, e um macho adulto que se destacou pelo seu enorme tamanho e dorsal.
A adrenalina disparou a bordo entre todos os participantes, incluindo eu que já não avistava por estes lados orcas há mais de uma década. O grupo não interagiu com as embarcações, e como tal mantivemos algum distanciamento. Após alguns momentos os animais seguiram a sua rota, e nós a nossa, deixando assim os primeiros registos fotográficos desta espécie no grupo ocidental dos Açores.
Fomos contactados por biólogos a trabalhar no terreno e alguns no mar dos Açores, e pediram-nos para que partilhássemos os nossos registos para comparar a outros avistamentos da mesma espécie, para tentar perceber se se tratam dos mesmos indivíduos, que passaram nas outras ilhas dos Açores. Até ao momento ainda não há conclusões.

>Hey, orcas in sight!
Carlos and Sofia, the skippers for Extremocidente, were heading toward Corvo Island after a tour along the northeast coast of Flores when, a few miles out, they were surprised by a pod of orcas traveling west toward the Americas. The group consisted of five to seven individuals, including a very young calf and an adult male that stood out due to his massive size and dorsal fin.
Adrenaline surged among everyone on board—myself included, as I hadn't seen orcas in these waters for over a decade. The pod did not interact with the boats, so we maintained a respectful distance. After a short while, the animals continued on their course and we on ours, leaving us with the first photographic records of this species in the Western Group of the Azores.
We were contacted by biologists working both on land and at sea in the Azores; they asked us to share our records so they could compare them with other sightings of the same species and determine if these were the same individuals that had passed by the other islands in the archipelago. So far, there are no conclusions.

(I don't speak Portuguese, so my translation may have inaccuracies)

A new open-access article in Marine Mammal Science, published by researchers from multiple conservation organizations, uses drone imagery and quantitative methods to shed new light on this critical feeding behavior. The authors found that, while Southern Residents share smaller portions of their caught prey than Northern Residents, in both populations mature females engage in the most prey-sharing events.

Photo is by NOAA and shows J2 Granny pursuing a salmon alongside her young relative J45 Se-Yi'-Chn, which she then shared with him.