Bloody And Violent Orca Attack Witnessed Near Palos Verdes

Orcas commonly found in the waters surrounding Mexico appear to have made a rare journey north this holiday season, bringing bloody and carnivorous hunts that have fascinated whale watchers to the Southern California coast, including off the coast of the Palos Verdes Peninsula.

Groups of up to roughly a dozen of the marine apex predators have been spotted in the area since Dec. 11 off the shores of the Channel Islands, Santa Monica Bay, Los Angeles, the Palos Verdes Peninsula, Long Beach, Newport Beach, Laguna Beach and San Diego.

The sightings kicked off with a bloody spectacle Dec. 11 near the Palos Verdes area, when an orca head-butted a bottlenose dolphin 20 feet in the air, leaving an arc of blood spray in its wake, according to Pacific Offshore Expeditions. The animals also killed and ate two common dolphins, the tour agency said.

After one of the killings, an orca pulled up alongside a whale-watching vessel and shot “a blood-red mixture of air, mucus and dolphin bits” through its blowhole, the Los Angeles Times reported, noting the pod appeared to include 10 killer whales.

“Yes, they are properly called Killer Whales both by the scientific community and also by anyone who actually watches them hunt mammals, in particular,” Pacific Offshore Expeditions said in a social media post. “It’s the facts of nature and we won’t sugar coat it: they are rather violent carnivores and that’s ok!”

The Dec. 11 hunt was far from the only noteworthy attack. On Dec. 18, Gone Whale Watching reported an orca head-butting a dolphin as it jumped above the water line near San Diego. Four days later, Long Beach-based Harbor Breeze Cruises witnessed a dolphin kill and a juvenile orca hunting a second dolphin.

In a particularly harrowing hunt Dec. 26, Pacific Offshore Expeditions reported that a sea lion jumped aboard the tour group’s vessel in the Channel Islands.

“What other words can we say, besides that this amount of activity is just unprecedented,” Newport Coastal Adventure posted Dec. 24 on social media. “They seem to have found a new hunting ground and it’s no telling how long they might stay at this point.”

The pod’s first stateside kill may have been an endangered fin whale that washed up Dec. 10 on San Diego’s Pacific Beach covered in orcas’ signature rake marks, according to NBC 7 San Diego.

The orcas in Southern California are Eastern Tropical Pacific killer whales usually found between the Mexican border and the equator, according to the California Killer Whale Project. Male orcas can weigh roughly 22,000 pounds and, despite being known as killer whales, they are, in fact, the largest member of the dolphin family, according to Whale & Dolphin Conservation USA.