When John Dickie spotted a pod of about 15 orcas while captaining his whale-watching boat off Kilcunda on the coast of Gippsland earlier this week, he knew it was a special experience.
“It was just an amazing sight and they were so interactive,” he said.
“We sort of pulled up about 100 metres or so away from them … and they just came straight up to us and swum around the boat.”
In his 30 years in the industry he said he had seen orcas about three times a year in groups of up to five, but these ones hung around for longer than he is used to and looked different.
“I was a little bit confused about what they were at first because I’ve seen killer whales quite a few times on different trips, but these guys were a little bit different, a little bit smaller than what we usually see,” he said.
It was only later when he sent the pictures to David Donnelly from the Dolphin Research Institute that he realised just how special the sighting was.
“What we’ve determined is that these are in fact Antarctic Type C killer whales, the first record of them occurring in Bass Strait and in Victorian waters, and only the seventh nationally,” Mr Donnelly said.
“To see them in our waters is unbelievably rare and the first record in Victorian coastal waters.”
Mr Donnelly said Type C orcas were the smallest in the world and ate fish, not other mammals.
Two sightings in one day
Mr Dickie’s sighting was followed by a second, larger sighting nearby.
“Since that event that happened with Wildlife Coast Cruises, another event was recorded at Cape Patterson, where 30 to 40 Type C killer whales were recorded,” Mr Donnelly said.
“When you start talking 30 to 40, that’s someone’s estimate, we haven’t counted them, but it’s certainly more than what was seen earlier in the same day and it fits more closely with what we expect Type C killer whales to be in terms of their pod size.
“They typically hang out in groups of anywhere between 20 and over 100 animals at a time.
“So it’s an absolutely amazing event and one we need to capture a little bit better, we need as many photos as we can get hold of, as much information as possible.”
Why are they here?
Mr Donnelly said the mammals may be moving north so they could shed diatoms – a type of algae that grows on their skin in colder waters.
