UPDATED: Orcas, Their Babies on Oregon Coast, Caught on Video

Updated 05/19/2015 at 3:35 PM PDT
By Oregon Coast Beach Connection staff

(Florence, Oregon) – It's been a killer month for Killer Whale sightings along the Oregon coast, and the fun just doesn't stop. (Still shots from the video by Lisa Horn - see the video at bottom of article).

Last week, the Whale's Tail Whale Watching Tours out of Depoe Bay caught some incredible photos of Orcas at sea, and on Sunday a Sweet Home resident caught some amazing video of the same pod carousing not just in the mouth of Florence's Siuslaw River – but quite a ways up the river.

Like last week's sighting at sea, Lisa Horn was there to see the same group with its two baby Orcas. Last week's encounter entailed what appeared to be six whales, but Horn thinks this group was just two adults and the two little ones.

Horn said she was staying at a condo along the Suislaw River when the Orcas appeared on the other side, far away. There were numerous people in other condos, and everyone soon had their cameras out. It was abou 2:30 to 3 p.m.

“They were going towards the bridge, then disappeared for a while, and then they came back up,” Horn said. “So it was about all of 25 minutes.”

Horn watched them reappear on the inland side of the bridge, and then they disappeared before coming back up where Horn caught the Killer Whales on camera. She said she saw them quite a ways up the river, all the way near the Mo's restaurant a few blocks away.

To see them go that far up a river is fairly rare.

“Later that night we had dinner at Mo's and the waitress said they saw them there, through the big windows,” Horn said. “So a lot of people got a good view.”

Even more dramatically, the Orcas appeared to be eating something – most likely a seal or sea lion, but possibly just plenty of fish. While Horn could not see what they were chomping on, she said there were quite a lot of seagulls diving in the water just after the whales and feeding off whatever they left behind.

The Orcas clearly chased away wildlife in the area. Horn recounted a situation similar to the whale watch tour boat in Depoe Bay last week that encountered the usual number of sea lions loitering in the waters on one trip, and then sudden, mysteriously – as if a kind of omen – they disappeared.

“Before they showed up there were seals around,” Horn said. “Then all of a sudden the seals were gone.”

A rather mysterious group of Killer Whales always shows up this time of year, usually from April through half of May. They are slightly more beaked in appearance and are transient whales because scientists don't actually know where they come from.

The one thing that is for certain is that they come this way chasing newborn gray whales for food as they and their parents migrate past the Oregon coast. More about Oregon coast whales here.

Photos below of Orcas near Depoe Bay, courtesy Lisa of Portland

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