First Since 2015: Pod of About 70 Short-Finned Pilot Whales Filmed Off Newport Beach
On Tuesday, November 3, whale-watching crews encountered a pod of about 70 short-finned pilot whales in the Pacific about five miles off Newport Beach, in Orange County, California. Davey's Locker and Newport Landing, which run whale-watching trips in the area, said it was the first time since 2015 that their crews had encountered a pilot whale pod in these waters. Video of the whales surfacing repeatedly to breathe, filmed by the crews, spread on social media after KTLA, Fox Weather and other outlets reported the sighting on November 4 and 5.
According to KTLA and the Orange County Register, citing the whale-watching operators, Captain Erica Page of Newport Coastal Adventure was the first to spot the pod. "For the first time since 2015, our whale watching crews encountered a pod of approximately 70 short-finned pilot whales just five miles off Newport Beach!" Jessica Rodriguez, education manager for Davey's Locker and Newport Landing Whale Watching, wrote in a news release. The operator's sightings log for November 3 shows pilot whales recorded on all six of that day's tours. Footage shot by crew members including Patrick Coyne was distributed via Storyful and picked up by multiple outlets.
According to NOAA Fisheries, the short-finned pilot whale is one of two pilot whale species and is found off both the East and West Coasts of the United States, as well as around Hawaii, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The animals are highly social, typically traveling in female-based pods of 15 to 30 close relatives, though pods of several hundred have been sighted in the past. NOAA Fisheries estimates that about 800 short-finned pilot whales exist on the West Coast today. The species feeds mostly on squid and has a bulbous head and a black to dark grayish-brown body.
Short-finned pilot whales were once regularly observed around Santa Catalina Island, where winter gatherings numbered in the hundreds, according to the Orange County Register. Their numbers declined sharply after the 1982-83 El Niño, when local market squid, an important food source, became scarce. The last time pilot whales were recorded around the Newport Beach area before this week was during the strong El Niño of 2014 and 2015.
Source: Davey's Locker and Newport Landing
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 短鳍领航鲸资料图（Cayambe摄，CC BY-SA 3.0，经Wikimedia Commons），非本次在Newport Beach外海拍到的鲸群
