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Nancy Black was trailing Monterey Bay’s most frequently seen orca pod in a whale watching vessel last Saturday when the mammals changed course and headed several miles closer to shore.
Black, a marine biologist with Monterey Bay Whale Watch and president of the nonprofit California Killer Whale Project, turned to keep up. She followed the pod along the south edge of Monterey Canyon, the largest and deepest submarine canyon off the Pacific coast of North America, to a kelp bed off Spanish Bay, near Pebble Beach.
Star, Bumper, Orion and Comet, who are also known in Monterey Bay as “the friendly pod,” specialize in hunting other marine mammals, but their weekend trip to the kelp bed did not include any violence.
Instead, the CA51 pod trekked to the rubbery algae bed to frolic and roll the strands of kelp over their dorsal fins.
“This most likely feels good on their skin,” according to Black.
Aerial video from onlooker Mike Kauffmann’s drone captured the pod as it played, recording its belly up tail slaps and spy hops, those moments when orcas raise their head above the surface to look at people.
The behavior in the footage above is rarer to observe in summer, Black said in a statement. Killer whale sightings are more frequent in Monterey Bay in spring, when the mammals arrive to hunt gray whales. Fall offers a second peak in sightings.
“We expect to see them periodically in the coming months but we never know when,” Black said. “There are many humpback whales feeding in the bay now and a few blue whales have arrived as well.”
The CA51 pod was first identified by Black in 1992. Star is an adult female orca and the mother to Bumper, Orion and Comet. Bumper and Orion are her sons. Comet is her young daughter. The mammals are known for living in family groups composed of an adult female and her offspring.
