Killer whale and orca family spotted on NSW south coast

ABC NEWS (Australia)

A pod of killer whales has been sighted in New South Wales, about 70 kilometres south of Merimbula, where it was also seen at a similar time last year. There's a well-known individual very recognisable split fin was first spotted back in 2003 and is considered the matriarch of the pod.

Transcript

00:00Yeah, thanks for having me on. As you can imagine, this killer whale scientist is very

00:06excited, not only to have recurrent sightings of one individual, as you said, from 2003,

00:14which is a really long time to see the same individual, but to also see a new calf. It's

00:20really important for us to understand the killer whale population here in Australia.

00:25And so, yeah, we'll get back to Splitfin in a moment. I think that's Bentfin there

00:29or whatever his name is. And is that the new calf?

00:33Yeah, there's a little picture, not yet, you might get to it soon. There's a little picture,

00:38there it is. You can see the tip of the new calf there swimming next to who we think is,

00:44we think the mother is square notch. So we've just got to go through the imagery a little

00:48bit more. But it's really exciting to see a population grow of killer whales that we

00:53still know so very little about. We still are unsure of the entire population estimate

01:00of Australian killer whales. We have a PhD student working on that. So to see the population

01:05continue to grow and to see it in the healthy state that it is, it's pretty exciting.

01:10And so in Australia, we hear heaps about the whales and the whale sharks, not so much about

01:16orcas. Some people might even be surprised to find out that we've got orcas in Australia.

01:21Why don't they get as much recognition or acknowledgement?

01:28The really good question. So a lot of Australians would be surprised to learn that killer whales

01:33have been seen in all Australian state and territory waters. So they've been seen all

01:38around Australia. On the east coast, we see them a little bit more sporadically than compared

01:44to the west coast where we have two known populations of Bremer and Ningaloo. But seeing

01:49the killer whales on the east coast has been a citizen science project now since 1994 with

01:55Killer Whales Australia. And most of this data comes from citizen scientists. So people

02:01out on the water, lucky enough to see them and sending that in. That's allowed us to

02:06track individuals such as Splitfin for over 20 years. So it's crucial when people see

02:12these animals to let us know.

02:14OK, so do the orcas or killer whales have a regular migration path? You mentioned that

02:22they're often seen off WA, less so the east coast. Are they the same groups of orcas or

02:28different pods?

02:31So it's really important when we talk about migration that we talk about the difference

02:35between how a killer whale travels compared to a migratory path that we know of humpback

02:41whales and, you know, our big famous humpback whales that everyone can probably look out

02:45their windows now off the coast and see them migrating up. So the humpback whales, they

02:50have their known migratory path. They'll go down to Antarctica in the summer to feed and

02:54they'll come up past Australian coastlines in the winter. Killer whales are different.

02:58They don't have a known migratory path. They'll basically go wherever their prey is. So we've

03:05seen Splitfin off New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia. And she does tend to

03:11go quite along the coastline where there's many seal haul outs or other prey items as

03:15well. In comparison to the killer whale populations here in Western Australia, we have a known

03:21population size of over 200 individuals that are always seen in one nice little offshore

03:26area called the Bremershav Basin. And we have the same, sorry, another population seen off

03:33the Ningaloo Reef as well over winter. So they don't have the typical migratory path

03:39that everyone thinks, but they do show some sight fidelity. So Splitfin, as you said,

03:45we've seen around the same time this year. And as we can see here, obviously, I'll point

03:48out to our viewers. Yes, that's Splitfin there. There we go. You can tell why she got her

03:54name. And can I just ask you, like, it must be so challenging for Splitfin to travel long

04:01distances when you see the other orcas with their perfectly formed fins. They're obviously

04:08a really important part of how it moves. What have you thought or theorised about the challenges

04:16that Splitfin faces? Look, they use their dorsal fin for some great

04:22control while they move, but she's been around for such a long time now, we think she's a

04:27matriarch. She's accustomed to it well now. So the fact she's still living and breeding

04:33and feeding is a good sign that she's adapted to it.

04:37And that was probably an injury? Yeah, we've seen a few split dorsal fins

04:42across the animals here in Australia. And it could have been an injury or an entanglement.

04:47But it also could have been killer whales playing with each other. They sometimes grab

04:52their teeth on the dorsal fin of other killer whales at tear. Maybe she got a tear when

04:56she was younger and over time that's come across. So there's a few hypotheses out there.

05:02You mentioned the Bremar orcas tend to, I think you said they tend to hang around Bremar

05:08Bay, I think it is you said. But the Splitfin pod kind of moves around a fair bit, like

05:15all the way up to kind of Robian, Northern WA, I think it is, however you pronounce it.

05:20And so what can you tell us about why this pod would move around more than the Bremar pod?

05:28So yes, Splitfin's only been seen on the East Coast for now, but she has been seen from

05:33New South Wales to South Australia. And that's quite a lot. So looking at her past history,

05:40I have had word that we look, she might be popping up in Phillip Island soon. She tends

05:45to pop up in Phillip Island in July. But it is a really long distance. But these animals,

05:51they travel in groups, they travel in families, and they feed along the way. So it's very

05:56different to what we know as our humpback whales, who only feed opportunistically during

06:01their migratory path.

06:03And how, you mentioned before, you don't know exactly what's happening, what the numbers

06:07are. But what can you tell us about the health of the population in Australia?

06:13It's a really important question. So we're still trying to understand the population

06:18estimate. Killer whales are listed as data deficient in Australia. So it means we don't

06:23know enough about them. But seeing new calves like this does give us hope. And as citizen

06:28scientists continue to donate their photos to us and let us know when they see them,

06:33that's helping us piece together the puzzle and understand just how well our killer whale

06:37population is doing.

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