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The Season of the Orca | Summer Issue 2008-9
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It really was an amazing thing. For several weeks pods of orca frolicked in the seas off Pouawa, Tatapouri, Makorori and Wainui. At times they were way out in the bay, surging north and then surging back south in large groups. At other times they were right in close. On several occasions they surfed beneath the waves sending stunned surfers scrambling for the beach. What were they doing here, where did they come from, and where have they gone?
The female orca that dropped in on Jaydah Martin-Ftzharris.
Story by Gray Clapham
While most people felt the huge sea mammals, commonly known as “killer whales”, posed no immediate harm to humans, young surfer girl Jayda Martin-Fitzharris got the fright of her life when a huge black and white orca came within touching distance as she was taking part in a surfing contest at the “Lone Pine” break in mid-October.
“It was really scary,” she told the Gisborne Herald. “I turned around and there was this big black fin, it was just behind my board.”
Watching from the shore, Boardriders Club organiser Heather Kohn of Lloyd George Road, said two orca, one a baby, appeared to chase Jayda as she started yelling and paddling fast towards the shore.
Over the weeks orca were sighted numerous times around the beaches. Paul Dixon of Wairere Road says he had three orca encounters this year. The first was last summer off the Wainui surf club when he spotted an estimated 2-metre high fin about 10 metres away. “It was coming straight for me and I paddled in so fast the clubbies asked if I wanted to compete for them in the next paddle board race,” he says.
The second encounter was the one many people witnessed at “Schools” in October: “I was out body surfing and I looked over and saw this huge male orca surfing a wave. He was really going for it. It was so cool.”
Paul says even though he tried to control it, fascination turned to fear on both occasions and his final reaction was to flee the perceived danger. He vowed the next time he would stay and make contact.
He got his chance a few days later when a mother and baby came by. He spotted the two dorsal fins and strummed his fingers along the ribs of his surf mat, making a high-pitched noise. Immediately the baby veered away from the mother and came straight over to him. It submerged beneath his surf mat leaving big water boils on each side before veering back to join its mother. Paul says he could see the “daddy” orca out the back keeping an eye on things.
Ben Cowper has posted a really good video on You Tube of at least three orca swimming around not far behind a crowd of surfers at Makorori Point on October 18.
Just when we thought they had disappeared wave ski rider Nigel Bryant accidently videoed a pod of orca passing by Lone Pine in late November when he set up a remote video to film himself in training.
The zoological name for these creatures is Orcinus orca. This is thought to be derived from the Latin word orcus, meaning “demon dolphin”. There are also many different common names for the species. The Society for Marine Mammalogy lists the English names killer whale and orca as the most common.
Department of Conservation spokesman Jamie Quirk said it was normal for orca to frequent East Coast beaches around October-November. It is believed the mothers come here to teach their young how to feed on stingray, he was reported in the Gisborne Herald.
“If you sit and watch them, you will notice the pod break into groups. Two will act like sheep dogs, working a certain part of the coast and shepherd the stingray into an area of the reef, at which point they will all join in on the feeding frenzy,” he said.
“Gisborne people are very lucky to see a unique marine mammal come so close to shore. And New Zealand orca are the only species of orca in the world that feed on stingray.”
“They will move through pretty quickly. They set themselves up in residence in the area between northern Hawke’s Bay, Mahia right through the East Cape,” Mr Quirk said.
Fully grown orca can reach six metres in length. The males are easily identified by their large, triangular dorsal fin, while female orcas have a curved fin. Juvenile orcas can be spotted swimming about the fins of the adults.
While there has been no record of orca attacking people or mistaking them for other sea creatures, Mr Quirk recommended that surfers or swimmers who found themselves in the company of orca exercise a degree of caution.
“They live in the sea all their lives, so they are much more aware of humans being there than we are of them. But they are wild animals so we must treat them with respect.”
Scientist and orca researcher Ingrid Visser based at Tutukaka in Northland is New Zealand’s knowledge-base about orca. In a New Zealand Geographic feature story recently she said her studies indicated that there were fewer than 200 orca individuals living permanently around the New Zealand coastline.
“Three groups appear to exist—one that inhabits the waters of the North Island, a second in the South Island, and a third that roams the entire area. Given this small population estimate, DOC has changed the status of orca from “common” to “nationally critical”— its highest threat ranking. This is because, although orca are found in other parts of the world, those around New Zealand are unique, with their own distinct dialects, hunting methods and other cultural characteristics.
“There is still much about them of which we remain ignorant, such as how stable their groups are, but we have certainly come to realise that they are special and deserving of our respect and protection,” Ingrid Visser says.
She says there isn’t a single verified record of an attack by wild orca on people anywhere in the world, although captive orca have killed several people. A few New Zealander divers have tales of close encounters with orca, during which their fins were nibbled and tugged. Such activity appears to be more an expression of curiosity or a bit of fun (for the orca, not necessarily for the diver) than testing for taste.
It is possible that this high degree of interaction with humans has evolved- the unique nature of New Zealand orca hunting culture. Culture can be defined as traditions transmitted and reinforced by members of a group. Orca culture is often unique to a small geographic location, not unlike human tribal culture. New Zealand orca employ several different hunting methods, but most are aimed at catching the same kind of prey— rays and sharks. New Zealand orca were the first to be recognised as specialising in hunting this type of prey, and they remain the only orca that use these particular methods.
NEW ZEALAND ORCA FACT FILE:
- 117 individual orca have been photo-identified in New Zealand waters. The population estimate ranges between 65 and 167.
- Some individual animals have been known to travel up to 170 km per day on average. The largest known range of a NZ orca is 4200 kms.
- Orca are most frequently seen in the Bay of Plenty/East Cape/Hawke’s Bay region in June, and often from October to December.
- NZ orca feed on a variety of prey, the most common being rays (long-tailed and short-tailed stingrays, eagle rays, and torpedo rays), but also sharks (blue, mako, basking, and school sharks), a variety of fin-fish (yellow-fin tuna, bluenose grouper, kahawai, and sunfish), and a blue penguin on one occasion.
- NZ orca have also been observed attacking and consuming other cetacean species (common dolphins, bottlenose dolphins, dusky dolphins, Hector’s dolphins, sperm whales, pilot whales, humpback whales, and southern right whales).
- NZ orca are often observed ‘food-sharing’, most commonly ray species, but also other cetacean species, and occasionally fish species.