From the Archipelago: Whale Attack!

February-March 2005

This is an article from WaveLength Magazine, available in print in North America and globally on the web.
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by Alexandra Morton

A minke whale beaching itself to avoid an orca attack. © Alexandra Morton photo.

The morning was calm with a hint of sun, and the large disturbance on the water—a concentric ring of waves—was out of place. There was no boat in sight that could have made those waves and so I waited. In moments, a minke whale burst to the surface just below my house, moving like a dolphin. In a powerful surge to the surface, it let go an explosive breath, coming so far out of the water I could see the white “armband” distinctive of minke whale pectoral fins. Then it dove. This whale appeared nothing short of panicked. I swept my eyes back along the route it had traveled, but saw nothing there worthy of this burst of speed.

Seconds later, the whale exploded to the surface again, turning mid-breath along my neighbor’s float. It then zig-zagged and sped into the narrows of Shoal Harbour. That’s when I saw the orca. Low in the water, no movement wasted, the female came on fast. I didn’t look for more whales as I made my way down to the boat, but I knew there must be several other orca present. I had never seen the mammal-eaters pursue a whale before, but it was too big a job for one orca and would take the cooperation of several of their typically small pods.

As I rounded the corner into Shoal Harbour, geysers of water churned at the river mouth. I thought an attack was underway. But when the determined female orca surfaced alongside the boat, I realized that only the minke was in the river mouth. It was dragging its streamlined body over the rocky substrate with enormous force, having chosen a gentle-sloped, white-shell beach to make its stand.

The whale lay her long grey chin on the beach, pumped with her tail and grounded herself firmly on the shore. Now the orca would have to deal with her business end— her wide-sweeping flukes her only defense. I shifted my attention to the orca.

“One,” I counted as the little female surfaced again, moving with unerring course towards the minke. Then “Two,” an unscarred male surfaced 50 meters behind her. The bay echoed their breaths. I scanned for more orca. “One,” the female blew again, gliding through water so shallow I could see her feel bottom and hump herself over the shallow spots. After several minutes, I realized there were only two orca.

I checked the tide book. The tide was going out for a couple of hours. Already the minke’s back was drying. She held her flukes out of the water, ready to descend with a powerful strike, and I could see where an orca had bitten. It was a small wound, but deep. There were also deep scratches where the whale had pushed against the seafloor. As the tide went out, the minke occasionally thrashed violently to move herself down the beach. I marveled at how such an ocean-going animal, used to only the caresses of the salty sea, was handling the sensation of her own weight bearing down on her. She understood the tide and how to stay in the ocean.

The pectoral fins or ‘arms’ of the male orca are as long as the dorsal fins are tall, and so the male could not approach the beached minke. The female, however—in all likelihood his mother—was better suited, and she came gliding into just over a meter of water. Cool and collected, she grazed her belly over the dorsal surface of the minke’s tail.

As the afternoon wore on, the tide turned and began to rise, and the minke carefully inched her way back up. The orca seemed determined to frighten the minke off the beach, with constant lethal passes less than a meter away, but the minke was steadfast. Later, the orca tried leaving the bay. Even the echoes of their breath became inaudible and at one point I started calling the minke “Einstein” for its brilliance in surviving this attack. I wondered how long the whale would remain on the beach without the orca, but then they returned.

Silently, they were just there. It was a stand-off. The minke was in water too shallow for the orca to ram and attack. But the female orca knew she ‘had’ that minke and seemed unable to leave the situation even if the kill could not be completed. I later learned from DFO researchers that these two whales had recently been involved in a successful attack and no doubt still had the taste of minke on their minds.

As darkness fell, eight hours after first seeing the disturbance on the water, I left my vigil on the beach, only meters from the minke’s chin. While I understand the orcas’ need to eat, the little baleen whale had won my heart. By now her head was in the forest above the rising tide.

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The next morning she was dead. In the night the tide had turned. She had clearly tried to follow the water back to the sea, but had grounded on a shallow bar, The scratches now covering her once smooth back told the story. She had rolled over and suffocated. The orca were gone, and there was no sign they had even tasted the whale, other than the initial nip. However, nature would not let this mountain of ocean-bred nourishment go to waste. A black bear, unsuccessful in finding chum salmon in Shoal Harbour’s now barren creek, was getting the calories she needed for hibernation.

Learning from the orca is a lifetime task— many lifetimes, really, as many of us must compare notes just to follow this nomadic species. There are layers to everything. At first one sees only the surface, then every event peels back to reveal a little more. With the natural world there is no good or bad; it is just what it is. We can like it or loathe it in turns, but there was no malice here. One thing dies so that another, even an unexpected recipient, may live, so long as there is no breakage in this flow of energy from the sun through the wondrous array of life. The tragic collision between the whales had saved a bear from starvation. Life was given to give life; no barriers prevented the success of the minke’s life from reaching the needy. While this natural law had the appearance of being ruthless, its capacity to bequeath life was plainly apparent.

While we like to think ourselves exempt from these laws, of course we are not. I hope this New Year will see renewed respect for natural laws, an accounting of our blessings before we give them away, and the return of common sense in our dealings with the world of which we are a part.

© Alexandra Morton, R.P.Bio., is a marine mammal researcher and author. www.raincoastresearch.org.