Deep-sea drama captured on camera: Killer whales harrass Right whales

Aerial photographer Tim Voorheis captures a rare event as killer whales, at bottom, harass agitated right whales last month about 35 miles east of Nantucket.

AFTER THE FIRST TIME he flew a plane over the Atlantic, commercial fisherman turned aerial tuna spotter Tim Voorheis went out and got a camera. He rarely made a flight after that one without finding something worth shooting.

"If you take the time to look at things, it's amazing what you can see," he said. Practically every cavity in a tuna plane contains a fuel tank, and pilots spend half a day circling, a thousand feet up, looking to guide harpoon boats to their prey.

But Voorheis' natural curiosity filled the downtime as he photographed life near the ocean surface. His inquisitiveness and photographic eye really paid off last month when he captured a most unusual image - a pod of 10 to 12 killer whales harassing a group of North Atlantic right whales, the most endangered whale species on earth, 35 miles east of Nantucket.

In his 20 years of commercial fishing and 15 years as a pilot doing both scientific work and finding schools of bluefin tuna for harpoon fishermen, Voorheis had only once seen killer whales - a mother and calf in Cape Cod Bay almost 30 years ago.

Killer whales, or orcas, are more popularly associated with the Pacific Northwest, specifically Puget Sound in Washington, where a resident inshore population makes for easy viewing. Even though killer whales are found in every one of the world's oceans, sightings in New England waters are so rare that even veteran whale researchers can go their entire career without seeing one.

On July 21, Voorheis was working for state Division of Marine Fisheries shark re-searcher Greg Skomal, leading a fishing vessel to basking sharks that were being tagged for research. He had spotted a group of sharks and radioed in his directions, then took off to see if there were any others around.

Boil of white
He was photographing a solitary right whale when, out of the corner of his eye, he saw a boil of white a few miles off and drifted over to see what it was.

The massive four or five right whales he found were literally climbing on top of one another. At first, Voorheis thought they might be breeding, but then he saw a smaller black animal shooting through the water under the whales. The sudden flash of the white patch along the sides of its head told him it was not a pilot whale, but a killer whale. For a half-hour he circled, shooting photos as two male killer whales he estimated at 20 to 22 feet long led a coordinated attack by eight to 10 other smaller orcas on the much larger right whales.

The strategy of the orca hunting pack seemed to be to try to break up the right whale pack, like wolves attacking a herd of cows. Just like cows, the whales shouldered up to one another, their big heads capable of butting crowded together.

Forty tons of muscle slammed a 2,000-pound tail, as broad across as the orcas were long, onto the water in warning slaps.

"You could feel the tension from 1,000 feet up," Voorheis said. "They were very uncomfortable."

Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies whale researcher Scott Landry doubts the killer whales could have taken down a right whale. Few right whale adults exhibit scarring from killer whale attacks, he said. But right whale calves are a different story, and young whales have been seen with the bite marks that show they survived an orca attack.

In his 15 years of whale research, Landry has never seen a killer whale. He agreed with Voorheis that the orcas were probably just harassing the right whales.

Opportunistic hunters
Landry said little is known about killer whales in the North Atlantic. Unlike most oceanic travelers, they are not migratory. They are opportunistic hunters that roam the world and show up when there's food around. They eat salmon, seals, whales, dolphins, seabirds, even the occasional misguided moose or deer out for a swim.

Researchers in the Pacific Northwest found at least three populations, with very different habits and distinctly different communication dialects. There was a resident inshore group that ate fish, a nomadic one that hunted marine mammals and ignored fish, and an offshore group with an unknown diet.

Killer whales tend to show up off Massachusetts in the summer or early fall, maybe chasing tuna, but no one knows with certainty.

"We get verified reports in Cape Cod waters only once every five to 10 years," Landry said.

More photos may be found at www.gulfofmaineproductions.com when it comes online Sept. 1.

Doug Fraser can be reached at dfraser@capecodonline.com

Source: www.capecodonline.com