American naturalist Olivia Esqueda witnessed the conflict in the Georgia Straits and said she had never seen anything like it. “The humpback whale was kind of chasing them,” he said. “We all suddenly saw the next surface with the hump right in the middle of all the killer whales.” For her, the experience during a whale watching trip from the port of Washington on Friday is something she will not forget. “Something is happening in front of us that we have never seen before,” he told CHEK News. “It’s hard not to be a kid at Disneyworld.” It all happened on a San Juan Safaris Whale Watching boat off the coast of Vancouver Island. CLOCKS The meeting of the bubbles with the oaths of Salish Seas excites the spectators

The meeting of the bubbles with the oaths of Salish Seas excites the spectators

A scientist with a group of tourists on a whale watching tour in the Salish Sea was thrilled by a rare sight on April 12 – a humpback whale that appears to be harassing a pod of temporary orcas. Katie Daugherty / CHEK News. 1:00
The incident is not the only recent offshore collision between orca and humpback. On March 9, a whale-watching travel agent in Tofino filmed the reverse, and more common script, in which a pod of transient orcas – also known as Bigg killer whales – attacked a young blown whale. Recording such encounters in the wild is unusual, experienced whale observers have agreed. “No exaggeration, I have never seen it before,” San Juan Captain Brian Goodtremont said in a video taken by Esqueda during the meeting. “I’ve been doing this for 22 years.” Victoria Whale Watching Guide Mark Malleson, Governor with Prince of Whales Whale Watching, agreed. A transient orca pod, also known as the Bigg Killer Whale, spotted a humpback whale mounted outside the frame on April 12 in the Salish Sea off Vancouver Island. (Ellie Sawyer / Maya’s Legacy Tours)
He said the whale involved was known to whale watchers and believed the marks on the whale’s fin were possible from a previous collision with orcas at a young age. “When he was in his first year he had close communication,” he told CHEK News. “It would have happened when he was with his mom.” Marine tensions between the two species have been widely reported, according to a 2016 study by National Marine Fisheries researcher Robert Pitman. He looked at more than 100 such collisions reported by scientists, of which nearly six in ten started with one or more humps, often what he called “reproach behavior,” to rescue other marine mammals that orcas were trying to hunt.