Photos: Orcas attack humpback whales

JORDAN RIVER, B.C. (KOMO) -- Whale watchers got something they hadn't bargained for recently off the west coast of Vancouver Island, B.C.

Killer whales attacked humpback whales.

These were transient, or Bigg's killer whales. The resident orcas of Puget Sound eat fish, especially salmon.

But transient orcas go after marine mammals. And that's what they did Sunday.

They went after two adult humpback whales and a calf.

“It was a great interaction,” said Capt, Mark Malleson of Prince of Whales Whale Watching, who also is a researcher for Fisheries and Oceans Canada and the Center for Whale Research on San Juan Island, in a news release from the Pacific Whale Watch Association. “I’m not sure if the killer whales ever thought they were going to be able to take one of these humpbacks out, but it appears they certainly enjoyed getting them worked up.”

Humpback whales have had a great increase in numbers, and sightings in Washington and British Columbia have increased this year.

“The whales were underwater doing whatever much of the time,” naturalist Valerie Shore of Eagle Wing Tours in Victoria said in the news release. “But what we saw was a lot of huffing and puffing from the humpbacks, orcas occasionally surfacing near or next to them, and occasional tail swipes. Much of it was in slow motion so I got the sense that there was a lot of maneuvering going on below, perhaps the adult humpbacks trying to block access to the calf.”

At one point, those watching thought the calf had suffered a traumatic injury, but what they thought was a large blood burst was whale poop. Naturalists say it could have been a defense mechanism or just a frightened calf.

“After much jockeying for position by both parties, mostly out of our sight, the adult humpbacks advanced on the transients in force, exhaling loudly, and the transients retreated, wisely deciding that they were outgunned," Shore said.

The calf may have suffered an injury after all, but that couldn't be confirmed.