“We had 4 or 5 boats of people just absolutely beyond excited 'cause it was a bucket list species.”
That is what Domenic Biagini, the owner of Gone Whale Watching described when seeing a pod of killer whales off the coast of Torrey Pines Tuesday.
“To see this species in Southern California waters, where it's typically beautiful, sunny, and relatively calm compared to other places where killer whales are often seen, it was a really exciting thing to share with all of our guests,” Biagini said.
Biagini told NBC 7 this was a rare sighting and this was only the 7th time since they started their company in 2019 that they've spotted a pod of killer whales.
Get San Diego local news, weather forecasts, sports and lifestyle stories to your inbox. Sign up for NBC San Diego newsletters.
An Orca sighting expert told NBC 7 that these killer whales were about a dozen Eastern Tropical Pacific Orcas likely traveling up from Mexico.
"There's no way for us to know what made them decide to take a road trip up the coast. But we do know that they linger in areas where the dolphins are," Alisa Schulman-Janifer, lead research biologist at the California Killer Whale Project. "They may be revisiting places where they had a lot of success."
In the video captured by Biagini, it appears that the pod is chasing some dolphins for food.
"So once we saw them eat three, four dolphins throughout the day, we knew that there was a chance they were going to be really happy," Biagini said. "That's when we got to see some jumping and breaching and spy hopping and them coming over to the boats to bow ride, just like the smaller dolphins do where they kind of ride the pressure waves a little bit."
Cool Marine Life in San Diego
Earlier this year, another pod of orcas was spotted off our coast.
"I was pretty much blown away," said, Mike Silva, captain of the Nimbus, describing an hour unlike any other segment of time he's ever lived. "These orcas are not shy. They were playing around us, playing around the boat."
Schulman-Janifer said if you get the chance to go on a boat and see the orcas in the next few days, you should make sure to give them their distance and let them decide if they want to come closer.
