For thousands of years gray whales have migrated from Alaska to Baja during winter months to give birth in warm waters. The reliability of the mammals’ migration patterns has spawned numerous whale watching businesses up and down the coast. But, on Wednesday whale-watchers rejoiced when a more uncommon group of visitors showed up unannounced – some 40+ killer whales.
“You never know when you’re going to see them,” Dana Wharf Captain Frank Brennan told the Orange County Register. “When they do show up, you have to be on the ball, or you’re going to miss them.”
According to reports, throughout the day more than 40 offshore killer whales were spotted off the coast of Orange County in groups of four to 18, traveling north.
According to Alisa Schulman-Janiger, a research biologist from the California Killer Whale Project, these whales differ from killer whales that have been spotted off the coast of California in years past.
“They’re smaller and have rounder fins,” she told the Register. “They’re chatty and like slapping their tails.”
One 25-foot male, nicknamed “Scoopfin”, was one Schulman-Janiger recognized first having seen in Monterey in 1992.
The videos above and below were shot by local whale enthusiast Mark Girardeau. He explains of the experience, “50-80 offshore type killer whales visited the coast of Orange County, Dana Point Whale Watching vessels first spotted them as they headed up the coast, Newport Coastal Adventure stayed with them to the amazement of many passengers on how beautiful these creatures are. We watched them go from 2 miles off Newport Beach to 18 miles off Huntington Beach.”
