The story of a minke whale and the orcas....
I know it's a little bit long but surely worth reading it :)
I must admit that I made a wrong assumption a few days ago. Quite a few orcas were going after a minke whale and I thought that the orcas are mammal eaters and they were actually chasing the minke whale to kill it.
However I was wrong. Yesterday I learnt from a researcher at the area (they were also on the boat) that the orcas what we have encountered in the last few days were not marine mammal eaters. They are most likely fish eaters however there is uncertainty about the type of fish they feed on.
They used satellite tags on one of the identified pod members in the past what we have encountered earlier this week and looks like these animals usually dive between 300-400 metres on average and the deepest dive which was recorded for them was 700 metres...
People who study the orcas here believe that this population is feeding on squid. This was also proved after a necropsy of a dead orca, they found squid in his stomach. That animal was believed to belong to the same population.
So the minke whale is actually their `friend`....they socialise together. Yesterday we have witnessed one of the most amazing (if not the most amazing) orca encounters in our life.
It was a sunny day, without any wind and early in the afternoon 3 female orcas and a younger calf joined our boat and swam close to it for hours. The orcas in this area are very curious and social with the boats and people. Probably it's because there are not many whale watching boats in the area and they behave extremely respectfully with both the orcas and the other operators.
So after a while yesterday next to the small group of females a minke whale joined. They were chasing each other a bit and riding the waves in the front of the boat, both the orcas and the minke whale.
They were socialising with each other and with the humans on the boat too. The orcas were spy hoping, slapping their pectoral fins and came very close to the boat and just float and looked at us. :)
One of the female orcas was making sounds from her blowhole while just floating 2 metres next to the boat. Probably she was answering to our whistles. Everybody on the boat was amazed and cheering for them. :)
We surely made a memory for a lifetime and we became part of a truly beautiful friendship for a short period of time ♡♡♡
Enjoy the photos!!
Rausu (Hokkaido), Japan - 2019/5/14 ... See MoreSee Less