Killer Whales on the Increase?
By Lloyd Edwards

1. News

Last week we had the privilege of seeing yet another pod of seven killer whales about two miles south of Cape Recife. The week before it was the notorious killer whale brothers, port and starboard, seen lurking off the port at Coega. They were spotted a few days later in the same area. Then last month we encountered a pod of at least 12 killers, still a record for Algoa Bay.

Two pointers as to weather there have been an increase in their numbers. Firstly, before the advent of mobile phones, news of killer whales did not spread that far. Now that everyone has a phone with a good camera, every sighting reverberates around the country! But scientists along the South African coast all agree that there have been an increase in sightings recently. On the day we saw the killers off Cape Recife, there were other sightings at Kenton on Sea, Mosselbay, Gansbaai and the West Coast. That is a first. Various reasons have been put forward like climate change or a shift in their prey distribution.

The bad news for us was the absence of white sharks at Bird Island. Before the killer whale sightings we had a great presence of whites at Black Rocks near Bird Island. They come to prey on the seal pups which are being weaned and learning to swim at present. After the killer whale sightings the sharks vanished . . . six visits to the rocks in 8 days and not a sign of them. As you may know, port and starboard work as a team, flipping the white sharks on their backs to immobilize them, each grab a pectoral fin and rip open the chest cavity. Only the liver is eaten and all the other sharks flee the area. Hopefully they will be back soon.

This beautiful male killer whale approaches us on our catamaran "My Bru". Our whale-watching permit allows us to go up to 50 metres. If they come closer and control the approach we sit tight, engines in neutral.

Note the smaller and more sickle shaped fin of the female. Taken with a Nikon D810 full frame, ISO 400, f/8, 1/1000th second and at 200mm zoom.

Dorsal fins in our type of killer whale can reach two metres in length.

A female and a calf off Cape Recife with the city and the Winterhoek Mountains in the background. 

Only the barnacle benefits from being attached, at no biological cost to the whale.

 

The white eye patch, the dorsal fin and the white patch (saddle) below the dorsal fin all help in identification. All these photos will be added to the national catalogue for killer whales.