Brooke Bembenek of San Diego Whale Watch had never seen an orca in person. Though she has worked for San Diego Whale Watch since 2021, orcas weren’t exactly a common sight.
Until recently.
Seeing social media videos showing orcas close to the La Jolla coast and popping up mere feet away from people swimming in Pacific Beach, Bembenek set out with her team in hopes of spotting these kings of the ocean. But Bembenek and her team didn’t just see orcas, they saw orcas in action.
“We were watching them go after a gray whale,” Bembenek recalled. “I use that phrasing very specifically because we all kind of discussed after the fact that if they really wanted to actively hunt and kill this whale, they would have.”
Bembenek shared how this seemed like a teaching moment for the calves in the group.
“The calves would go off and rest and then they would come back and they did that two or three times in the 45 minutes that [they] were with them,” she said. “We don’t see them very often, so it’s definitely a rarity that they’ve been around so much.”
Dr. Vanessa ZoBell, an oceanographer at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, gave some insight into the potential reasons this pod is near San Diego. Dr. ZoBell’s research specializes in human and wildlife interactions in Southern California, specifically with whales and ships.
“They’re a cosmopolitan species, which means they’re found all over the world, but the pod that is currently in San Diego and in Southern California is from Mexico. They’re called the Eastern Tropical Pacific Orca.” Dr. ZoBell said. “It’s an El Niño year so the water temperatures are a little warmer than usual, so that might be mimicking the waters they’re used to down in Mexico which allowed them to shift their range farther north.”
ZoBell said that the orca’s diet may be a contributing factor for this unusual SD activity. “They most likely came to San Diego, or Southern California in general, because we have so many common dolphins and bottlenose dolphins,” she said. ”That’s what they forage on, so it’s a good place for them to come.”
While neither professional could give a solid timeline as to how much longer the orcas will be visiting the San Diego coast, Benbenek said naturalists and oceanographers have been able to use this time to learn from the pod.
ZoBell added that evolving technology presents new ways to track the pod. “With technology we have drones and so many more ways to capture footage for these animals. I think it’s a really interesting opportunity to learn more about them,” she said. “I think it’s a really interesting opportunity to learn more about them.”
