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Tag: orcas

  • Researchers in WA say newborn Southern Resident orca likely dead

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    A group of whale researchers monitoring the Southern Resident J Pod believe a new baby orca, J64, is most likely dead.

    Encounter #64 – October 23, 2025 – JPod – 1 (Center for Whale Research)

    According to the Center for Whale Research, the team headed out after receiving reports of J Pod traveling north at the south end of Swanson Channel in Canadian waters northwest of the San Juan Islands. The team was eager to check on the status of J42’s new calf, J64. 

    Researchers spotted the whales near Village Bay and began taking identification photos of those present. They said J16, J26 and J42 were swimming a couple dozen yards northwest of the larger group.

    What they’re saying:

    “We found J42 and held the camera trigger down while waiting for J64 to pop up behind her,” the Center for Whale Research wrote in a Facebook post. “Unfortunately, J64 did not surface after J42. We hoped it was nursing or something, but we kept seeing J42 surface repeatedly, and there was no calf with her.”

    After seeing J42 complete several long dives without the calf surfacing, the team concluded that J64 likely did not survive.

    “We kept taking photos of the whole group hoping J64 was playing with other whales,” the group wrote. “However, there was no sign of the newest calf even though we kept seeing J62 and J63.”

    What’s next:

    The Center for Whale Research said J64 is most likely deceased but will continue to monitor future encounters. Standard protocol is to confirm a whale’s death after three consecutive sightings in which it is not present.

    Researchers said this was J42’s first confirmed calf, and that mortality rates for calves born to first-time mothers are especially high among the Southern Residents.

    Southern Residents depend on healthy, abundant Chinook salmon populations to sustain themselves and their young. Researchers believe poor nutrition and the transfer of toxins from mother to calf are likely key factors in the whales’ high mortality rate.

    The Source: Information in this story comes from a press release by the Center for Whale Research.

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    Jim.Jensen@fox.com (Jim Jensen)

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  • Jaw-Dropping Video Shows Orcas Flipping a Great White Shark to Feast On Its Liver

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    Orcas are called “killer whales” for a reason. These apex predators are adept pack hunters, using coordinated attacks and specialized techniques to take down their prey.

    Scientists recently captured stunning drone footage of a pod of orcas in the Gulf of California killing juvenile great white sharks by flipping them upside down and feasting on their livers. Researchers described the attacks in a new study published Monday in the journal Frontiers in Marine Science.

    The video is the work of the study’s lead author, marine biologist and wildlife underwater cinematographer Erick Higuera, and Marco Villegas. Higuera has been filming and studying orcas for more than a decade, but the first time he observed this particular shark-hunting behavior was in August 2020. At first, he couldn’t tell based on the drone footage what species of shark the pod was hunting.

    “I thought, ‘Well, it might be a sand tiger shark,’ you know—one of those similar looking sharks. But I never thought that it was going to be a great white,” Higuera told Gizmodo.

    Bewildering behavior

    While interactions between these two lethal predators are considered rare, scientists have documented orca attacks on great white sharks in South Africa, Australia, and other areas of the California coast. Killer whales target these sharks for their nutrient-rich livers, which can weigh up to 1,300 pounds (600 kilograms), according to Higuera—that’s about a quarter of the shark’s total mass.

    Flipping sharks upside down is a common hunting strategy orcas use to induce a state of tonic immobility. The move temporarily paralyzes the shark, preventing it from fighting back. It also gives orcas direct access to their liver.

    What’s unique about this pod of orcas in the Gulf of California is that they are targeting juvenile great whites as opposed to adults, study co-author Salvador Jorgensen, a marine ecologist and assistant professor at California State University Monterey Bay, told Gizmodo.

    Orcas tend to hunt adult great whites because they offer a bigger reward. “The liver is much larger,” Jorgensen explained. “But what we’re seeing in the Gulf of California is that they’re repeatedly going after small individuals that maybe were born a year or two ago.”

    Figuring out what’s driving these orcas to target young great whites instead of adults will require further research, but the authors have some ideas about the advantages this strategy may offer.

    Shifting hunting tactics

    What juvenile great white sharks lack in liver size they may make up for in ease, according to the researchers. It might just be simpler for a pod of orcas to flip a younger, smaller great white onto its back, enabling an easier kill.

    Juvenile great whites may also be more naive than adults. Fully grown great whites have an uncanny ability to sense when orcas are near. “If they even get the tiniest scent or hint of an orca, all of those white sharks will flee from that area,” Jorgensen explained. If that’s a learned behavior, this would suggest that younger sharks are more vulnerable to orca attacks, he said.

    “Maybe they don’t have that flight strategy developed yet,” Higuera suggested.

    Climatic shifts could be playing a role as well. The increased frequency of El Niño events and marine heat waves in the Pacific Ocean appear to have altered great white shark nursery areas, increasing their presence in the Gulf of California. That shift may have presented this particular pod of orcas with an opportunity, offering up seasonal cohorts of juveniles.

    Whatever the case, documenting repeated orca attacks on juvenile great whites for the first time raises many new questions about both species and their interactions. “It’s exciting that in this day in age when we have sensors and cameras everywhere, we’re still finding new stuff,” Jorgensen said. “There’s still mysteries like this in the ocean.”

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    Ellyn Lapointe

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  • Seaquarium where Tokitae died gets evicted by city of Miami

    Seaquarium where Tokitae died gets evicted by city of Miami

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    Miami Seaquarium gets evicted from city

    The Miami Seaquarium, an old-Florida style tourist attraction that was home to Lolita, the beloved Orca that died last year, is being evicted from the waterfront property it leases from Miami-Dade County.

    MIAMI – A lease termination was served to the company that runs the Miami Seaquarium (MSQ), the facility where Tokitae, a beloved killer whale that was taken from the Pacific Northwest half a century ago, died in 2023.

    Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said that the Dolphin Company, which runs MSQ, had repeatedly fallen short of contractual obligations.

    “From failing to maintain the premises in good condition, to failing to demonstrate that they can ensure the safety and wellbeing of the animals under their care, the current state of the Miami Seaquarium is unsustainable and unsafe,” said Levine Cava.

    The owner of the company immediately took to Twitter, stating that he was outside of her office while she addressed Miami media outlets and was denied access to the press conference where she laid out her concerns.

    “Miami Seaquarium is open and will remain open,” wrote Eduardo Albor, who went on to say that the mayor was lying to the public.

    It’s a very different back-and-forth than from March 2023 when both the mayor and Albor made a highly publicized announcement that various entities were coming together to begin efforts to return Tokitae to her home waters.

    However, as Tokitae’s health deteriorated and plans to return her to Washington state began to seem more far-fetched, issues continued to pile up for the long-troubled aquarium.

    The USDA had issued various reports over the past calendar year raising alarms about the state of the facility. Documented issues range from black mold to bacteria in water and injuries to both animals and visitors.

    In the letter that was delivered to MSQ on Thursday morning, references were made to three notices of violations dating back to 2022. There were also various USDA inspection concerns, including numerous citations for failing to adequately maintain facilities, inadequate veterinary care, inadequate water and more.

    Whistleblowers have long blamed MSQ for ongoing issues. Dr. Jenna Wallace was among the former veterinarians who raised concerns of animal deaths, including Tokitae’s.

    “I’m very concerned that her behavior was misinterpreted because those people that we there did not know this animal for two decades like her previous staff did,” said Dr. Wallace days after a short synopsis of Tokitae’s death was released without a full necropsy.

    In recent days, it was announced that a documentary surrounding her final days will be revealed at a film festival next month – it is unclear whether the movie will focus on the deteriorating conditions of the park, or its multiple citations from USDA in her final months of life.

    HOW DID TOKI WIND UP IN CAPTIVITY?

    Native American tribes revere orcas, considering them their relatives.

    White settlers had a different view. Fishermen reviled the “blackfish” as competition for salmon and sometimes shot them.

    That began to change in 1965, when a man named Ted Griffin bought a killer whale that had been caught in a fisherman’s net in British Columbia and towed it to the Seattle waterfront. The whale — Namu — became a sensation.

    Namu soon died from an infection, but Griffin had set off a craze for capturing the Pacific Northwest’s killer whales and training them to perform, as The Seattle Times recounted in a 2018 history. Griffin corralled dozens of orcas off Washington’s Whidbey Island in 1970. Several got caught and drowned when opponents cut the nets, intending to free them.

    Many orcas remained nearby, declining to leave as their clan members were hauled out of the water. Among those kept was 4-year-old Tokitae, later sold to the Miami Seaquarium.

    By the early 1970s, at least 13 Northwest orcas had been killed and 45 delivered to theme parks around the world; Toki is the only one still alive. The roundups reduced the Puget Sound resident population by about 40% and helped cause problems with inbreeding that imperil them today.

    Outrage over the captures helped prompt the U.S. Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972.

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    Matthew.Smith@fox.com (Matthew Smith)

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  • Lolita The Orca Dies At Miami Seaquarium After Half-Century In Captivity

    Lolita The Orca Dies At Miami Seaquarium After Half-Century In Captivity

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    MIAMI (AP) — Lolita, an orca whale held captive for more than a half-century, died Friday at the Miami Seaquarium as caregivers prepared to move her from the theme park in the near future.

    The Seaquarium posted a statement from the nonprofit group Friends of Toki on social media that Lolita — also known as Tokitae, or Toki — started exhibiting serious signs of discomfort over the past two days. Seaquarium and Friends of Toki medical team members began treating her immediately and aggressively, but the 57-year-old orca died from an apparent renal condition, the statement said.

    “Toki was an inspiration to all who had the fortune to hear her story and especially to the Lummi nation that considered her family,” the Friends of Toki statement said. “Those who have had the privilege to spend time with her will forever remember her beautiful spirit.”

    Animal rights activists have been fighting for years to have Lolita freed from her tank at the Miami Seaquarium. The park’s relatively new owner, The Dolphin Company, and the nonprofit Friends of Toki announced a plan in March to possibly move her to a natural sea pen in the Pacific Northwest, with the financial backing of Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay.

    “I am heartbroken that Toki has left us,” Irsay said in a statement. “Her story captured my heart, just as it did millions of others. I was honored to be part of the team working to return her to her indigenous home, and I take solace in knowing that we significantly improved her living conditions this past year. Her spirit and grace have touched so many. Rest in peace, dear Toki.”

    Kyra Wadsworth, a trainer at the Miami Seaquarium, is seen working near Lolita’s stadium tank on July 8, 2023, in Miami. (Matias J. Ocner/Miami Herald/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)

    Miami Herald via Getty Images

    Lolita retired from performing last spring as a condition of the park’s new exhibitor’s license with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. She’s not been publicly displayed since. In recent months, new upgrades had been installed to better filter the pool and regulate her water temperature.

    Federal and state regulators would have had to approve any plan to move Lolita, and that could have taken months or years. The 5,000-pound (2,267-kilogram) had been living for years in a tank that measures 80 feet by 35 feet (24 meters by 11 meters) and is 20 feet (6 meters) deep.

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  • Orcas Sink Another Boat In Europe, And The Behavior Is Spreading

    Orcas Sink Another Boat In Europe, And The Behavior Is Spreading

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    A trio of orcas worked together to sink a yacht off the coast of Spain, the latest in a string of similar incidents involving the marine mammals and European boats.

    The three killer whales, one larger than the other two, rammed into the yacht on May 4, skipper Werner Schaufelberger said in a media report published last week.

    “The two little orcas observed the bigger one’s technique and, with a slight run-up, they too slammed into the boat,” he told Germany’s Yacht magazine.

    The people aboard were all rescued, but the boat ultimately sank.

    Since 2020, there have been “continuous” reports of orcas having these kinds of “interactions” with boats in the Strait of Gibraltar and the waters around Spain’s Galicia region, biologist Alfredo López Fernandez of Portugal’s University of Aveiro told Live Science.

    The researcher, who co-authored a paper on the phenomenon published last year in the journal Marine Mammal Science, told Live Science that he only knew of three instances since 2020 in which orcas had fully sunk a boat. He also noted that the vast majority of vessels are left in peace.

    A female orca leaps from the water while breaching in Puget Sound, west of Seattle, in 2014.

    In 2022, orcas sank two sailboats — one in July and one in November — off the coast of Portugal.

    In those cases, everyone was rescued and there were no injuries. But the incidents can be jarring even when the boats don’t sink.

    Speaking to NPR last year, yacht passenger Ester Kristine Storkson described how a group of orcas near France started “ramming the boat” she was on, giving the impression of “a coordinated attack.” In 2020, British yacht captain David Smith said that “six or seven” orcas started slamming into his vessel for two hours, apparently “going for the rudder.” In both instances, the yachts did not sink and no one was injured.

    Researchers don’t know for sure what’s prompted the behavior. But López Fernandez told Live Science that some scientists suspect it all started when a female known as White Gladis had an initial collision or other traumatic encounter involving a boat. The theory is that she then started exhibiting “defensive behavior” against vessels, which other orcas began to copy.

    “That traumatized orca is the one that started this behavior of physical contact with the boat,” López Fernandez said.

    While seafarers may not be pleased with the new orca fad, the animals appeared to have gained quite a few fans on social media.

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