IIt looks like the killer whales are ready for their close-ups. Charismatic marine mammals made headlines this week for two very different activities, both captured in unprecedented detail.
On Sunday, a team of scientists in Norway witnessed and recorded the birth of a killer whale in real time – possibly the first time such an event has been photographed in the wild. I write on mine Facebook pageThe Orka channel reported on the delivery of cetaceans that took place near Skjerva in the Arctic Circle. “We were calmly floating and watching the feeding when suddenly blood was spilling everywhere next to the boat…” wrote Cristina Balotay, a photographer and videographer for Orca Channel, a wildlife documentary and travel agency. “At first I had no idea what was happening. A moment later I saw a small head jerk above the water…”
Read more: “The Story of a Lonely Orca»
Whale watchers aboard the Orca Canal boat and another team from the Norwegian Orca Watch waited nervously as the newborn killer whale struggled to breathe and swim on its own for about 15 minutes. But with the help group memberswhich formed a perimeter around the vulnerable calf and supported it on its back above the water until it was able to swim on its own.
“This event represents a historic event: the first ever documentation of an orca birth and the first hour of a newborn's life in the wild,” Norwegian conservation group Orca Review wrote in its report. Facebook page. “Our observations will allow us to identify the individuals involved and understand their role in supporting the calf in the first moments of its life. We are currently working to collate all available data and plan to publish the full documentation as a scientific paper in the near future.”
At the other end of the life spectrum, killer whales have been recorded using a deadly strategy to obtain food from one of the ocean's deadliest predators – great white shark.
The researchers published report this week in Frontiers of Marine Science details the shark hunting strategy of a pod of killer whales in the Gulf of California off the coast of Mexico. In two separate incidents, both filmed by aerial drones, killer whales surrounded juvenile great white sharks, flipped them onto their backs (which immobilized the sharks) and tore out their livers, sharing the kill. Hey, they didn't get the nickname “orcas” for nothing.
Killer whales forever fascinating sea creatures. Scientists continue to learn new things about this species the more they observe its behavior. From guarding a struggling newborn calf to inventive hunting tactics to defeat an ocean killer, killer whales may have more secrets to share. And humans, now equipped with increasingly sophisticated tools to record previously unseen behavior, appear to be up to the task.
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Main image: MuhammadIshfaq1 / Shutterstock
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