#eastern tropical pacific

californiatransients:

nowscience-blog:

This rather heartbreaking clip shows an Orca dragging a baby Humpback Whale by the tail.

I know it’s not sad but the wild is a cruel and unforgiving place. So don’t please don’t hate on us.

Here’s the source of the video

This was filmed off the Baja California peninsula, Mexico by Whale Watch Cabo. These appear to be Eastern Tropical Pacific (ETP) orcas, which are known to feed on a variety of prey items, including large marine mammals. It’s very rare to capture underwater footage of predation, so this is really stunning.

I can’t quite get clear IDs on them, I’ll have to dig in to the ETP ID guide to see if there are any matches! The adult male looks most closely like E231, but I’ll have to double check.