Orcas attack, kill large fin whale off La Paz (rare footage)

 

More people these days are critical of SeaWorld and other marine parks for capturing and keeping killer whales in captivity, thanks largely to "Blackfish" the movie.

But if you could ask some of the mammals the killer whales prey upon, they'd probably have a different opinion.

The accompanying footage, captured in 2012 but uploaded to YouTube for the first time on Friday, shows a pod of killer whales working together to kill a large fin whale in La Paz Bay in Baja California Sur.

The One Baja, a yacht charter company, uploaded the footage Friday and stated that the fin whale, estimated to measure at least 50 feet, ultimately was killed.

"It just stopped swimming and sank. Pieces of meat started floating," Mariel Correa, spokeswoman for The One Baja, said Tuesday.

If so, this is rare footage of a rare event because killer whales generally attack large whales to get to their calves, and usually it's only calves that are killed.

Correa said that another large fin whale with a calf was "about 10 minutes in the distance" and added: "It was as if they were running away."

Killer whales have been active in the Sea of Cortez recently, and there have been several encounters during the past couple of years.

Fin whales can reach about 80 feet in length, and are second in size only to blue whales.

They're also among the swiftest of the great whales, but apparently, they're not always swift enough.

Comments

[Steve]

At 2:50 in the video you can see shallow slices in the fin whale's back consistent with injuries from a boat's propeller. That boat ran over the fin whale! No respect.

[Alex]

I'm sure having the boat right on top of it didn't exactly help to give the less-maneuverable fin whale the upper hand in the struggle either - way to interfere!

[Rocio G]

'Orcas attack' is the only line people will stick with even though they are only trying to provide for themselves, but yeah okay.

[Kris Finn]

Well, I've never read of killer whales attacking fin whale cow-calf pairs, so with fin whales it's not one bit unusual.