Whale watchers off British Columbia, Canada, watched in awe Sunday as an orca used its fluke to fling a seal perhaps 40 feet above the surface.
“They were amazed and excited, and I think they knew this was not something we see every day,” Capt. Andrew Lees, owner of Five Star Whale Watching, told For The Win Outdoors. “I think they knew it was special from my reaction.”
The charter aboard Salish Shadow encountered two transient orcas – a mother and son catalogued as the T10s – Sunday afternoon off Vancouver Island near Victoria. The 21-year-old son is the orca shown “punting” the seal in Lees’ images.
The seal did not survive the landing and ultimately was devoured.
Lees said the orcas also breached and slapped their tail flukes as the predatory event occurred.
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Transient orcas prey on marine mammals and are known to play with their food in possible teaching events to benefit younger pod members. Batting or flinging mammals high into the air is a method of stunning or killing prey.
While it’s rarely witnessed, such dramatic events have been documented.
In October 2015, also off Victoria, an adult transient orca catalogued as T69C tossed a harbor seal 70 feet into the air.
That incident was captured on video by a production company, and displayed in photographs by California-based researcher Alisa Schulman-Janiger, who was on the cruise.
“Our highlight was a harbor seal predation by Bigg’s (transient) orcas, the T69s,” Schulman-Janiger wrote. “After three attempts, adult male T69C tossed a harbor seal well over 70 feet straight up into the air – sending it flying among the gulls!” Schulman-Janiger wrote.
