I was out the back at The Mount today waiting for a wave when 4 orca popped up, 2 calves and their mothers, and cruised past about 3 metres to the closest one which gave me the once over. I was so busy watching them I fell off Must admit I scrambled back on pretty fast, they are big! I have surfed with dolphins before and seen orca from my kayak but this was a close encounter. They were probably hunting orca biscuits, (stingray).
Damn meant to put this under general!

You do know they are just big dolphins right?

That's cool. I would like to SUP with Orcas.

I bet you got back on your SUP quickly!

Very cool----what great luck to be able to see them!

cool Nature...another name for a Orca is killer whale ..
I 'd be packing.

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PTWoody said..
You do know they are just big dolphins right?

I do - they are also big, have large teeth and play catch with seals - at the moment I fell in the water I seemed to forget the fact that there has been no recorded attack on a human by an orca. They are very impressive close up, much more so than your every day dolphin. I feel very privileged having had the experience

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CharlieF said..

PTWoody said..
You do know they are just big dolphins right?

I do - they are also big, have large teeth and play catch with seals - at the moment I fell in the water I seemed to forget the fact that there has been no recorded attack on a human by an orca. They are very impressive close up, much more so than your every day dolphin. I feel very privileged having had the experience

No recorded attacks on humans in the wild. Several attacks and at least a couple of deaths in captivity. I had the great good fortune of joining a pleasure cruise to track a pod of Orcas off the coast of Alaska about 10 years ago. There were at least 20 of them. They behaved almost exactly like dolphins. But as you say, much bigger.

I Don't blame them for drowning a couple humans in captivity those fish were not mentally stable from the life they have lived. That black fish doco was good.

I remember seeing a youtube vid of a couple lads in full black steamer suits doing ocean swimming in north hemisphere and orca's come up to them and said G'day, the humans they thought they were lunch but the orca's just checked them out made some noise and kept going on there merry way.

No recorded deaths in the wild is a pretty amazing statistic i reckon. There's plenty of creatures in the sea that are harmless yet have still killed a human by freak accident etc

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AndyR said..
No recorded deaths in the wild is a pretty amazing statistic i reckon.

Yes, especially since the "culture" of each pod seems to differ so much in their hunting habits, it is quite extraordinary that some didn't try a bite of these annoying hairless monkeys... or all the witness have been eaten?

Google "orcas chasing dolphins"...

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colas said..

AndyR said..
No recorded deaths in the wild is a pretty amazing statistic i reckon.

Yes, especially since the "culture" of each pod seems to differ so much in their hunting habits, it is quite extraordinary that some didn't try a bite of these annoying hairless monkeys... or all the witness have been eaten?

Google "orcas chasing dolphins"...

Apparently the habit of the NZ pods hunting in small groups in harbours and close to the shore for stingray is unique to them, although I stand to be corrected, hence we get to see them from time to time. I have seen them in Raglan Harbour and once in the Waitemata Harbour when I was fishing from my kayak.

Read the book 'Killers of Eden'. A good non-fiction story about early whaling in Aus and a great story about how man and Orca worked together.

They sit under rec fishing boats here and steal big blue-eye as they come up from about half a km down.

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AndyR said..
I Don't blame them for drowning a couple humans in captivity those fish were not mentally stable from the life they have lived. That black fish doco was good.

I remember seeing a youtube vid of a couple lads in full black steamer suits doing ocean swimming in north hemisphere and orca's come up to them and said G'day, the humans they thought they were lunch but the orca's just checked them out made some noise and kept going on there merry way.

No recorded deaths in the wild is a pretty amazing statistic i reckon. There's plenty of creatures in the sea that are harmless yet have still killed a human by freak accident etc

Agreed.

They are impressive and cool.......apparently they are having medical problems from being at the top of the food chain and toxic chemicals are building up in their systems........in NZ anyway where they enter harbours and feed on rays that are soaking up local pollutants

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CharlieF said..

colas said..

AndyR said..
No recorded deaths in the wild is a pretty amazing statistic i reckon.

Yes, especially since the "culture" of each pod seems to differ so much in their hunting habits, it is quite extraordinary that some didn't try a bite of these annoying hairless monkeys... or all the witness have been eaten?

Google "orcas chasing dolphins"...

Apparently the habit of the NZ pods hunting in small groups in harbours and close to the shore for stingray is unique to them, although I stand to be corrected, hence we get to see them from time to time. I have seen them in Raglan Harbour and once in the Waitemata Harbour when I was fishing from my kayak.

We have seen them in the Tauranga harbour and up and down the BOP / Coromandel coast. While scuba diving for crays in Hahei I could hear whale like noises but never got to see one. My mate had his head in a hole working on a cray and when he emerged there was one not 3 feet way looking straight at him. He nearly had a heart attack. I suggested he should have given him the cray but there was no way he was going to give it up. The Orca gently swam away and Dave came up to the boat but the orca turned and followed him up.He dropped his cray bag in fright and the orca followed the bag down and that was the last he saw of him.

Wonderful creatures.

If you get a chance watch a movie called 'blackfish"

Yeah, even though you know there is just about no chance of being killed, it still makes you s*** yourself just a little bit, especially if they pop up without warning!

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GizzieNZ said..
They are impressive and cool.......apparently they are having medical problems from being at the top of the food chain and toxic chemicals are building up in their systems........in NZ anyway where they enter harbours and feed on rays that are soaking up local pollutants

Unfortunately NZ was and maybe still is the highest user of pesticides and herbicides per hectare in the world. NZ uses 93% of the worlds production of 1080 for pest control where most countries have banned it. It all has to find its way into the waterways eventually in some way or form.

A couple of weeks back there was a big orca about 200m out from where we were surfing at Big Left, Flinders (for those who don't know it, the break is about 5-600m offshore). It only surfaced twice, but it was big and travelling fast - chasing something. It's dorsal fin looked taller than me. Very impressive.