Orca Eating a Sea Lion!

Join me today to watch one of the best Orca experiences I've ever had! This is some awesome and detailed footage of Transient/Bigg's Orca playing with and tearing apart a Steller Sea Lion carcass before devouring it. These orca roam around all of Southeast Alaska and beyond, feeding on sea lions and all other marine mammals, so finding them in our little area of water is rare and awesome, and finding them while they are feeding is amazing! The full, unedited footage will also be available to watch, but it does have a lot of empty water.
Events like this usually only happen a couple times a year in our area, and we never know when. Earlier in the year, many of the Transient Orca head down towards California to intercept Grey Whale calves, or to Washington and British Columbia for the overpopulated seals and sea lions, but they usually come back through at least a few times a summer to snack on our local wildlife. Obviously catching that on camera is very hard, but when we're on the water most days of the week, and fly a drone on every tour, the odds of filming it at least once every summer or two seem to go up!
All footage was taken on board the Riptide with Capt Josh on one of his unique tours with Alaska Whale and Drone Tours, alaskawhalesanddrones.com/ the only tour company to use high-end commercial drones to enhance the customer viewing experience!
#alaska #whalewatching #orca #whale #whales #whalewatch #orca #humpbackwhale #sealions #drone

[@arthurdirindinjr1792]

Over 30 years ago read a book by a marina biologist studying both resident and transient Orca pods all along the coast of the American Pacific Northwest and Western Canadian Pacific coast He said he often dove with resident Orca pods and felt completely safe He did however say he would NEVER even think of getting in the water with a transient Orca pod He went on to say resident Orca pods were much more curious and friendly towards him and he quickly developed a relationship with many of the resident Orcas that learned to identify his boat as well as him and would come over to say hi he said resident Orcas played and had fun on a regular basis and resident Orcas communicated among themselves constantly and were very very vocal He said transient Orca pods were nothing like resident Orca pods weren't friendly towsrds him and showed little curiosity about him and were 100% business and thier business was strictly hunting killing and eating pray he rarely saw them playing and were much less vocal than resident pods and became essentially silent when actively hunting I got the distinct impression this biologist was rather intimidated by transient Orca pods

[@AlaskaWhaleanddronetours]

I've never been in the water with either, but from what I've seen with the drone and from the boat I definitely agree with his assessment. They are absolutely intimidating animals!

[@thebigpicture2032]

Great coverage. Subbed!

[@AlaskaWhaleanddronetours]

Thanks for the sub!

[@Vinsomer]

My missus is like that. Things are getting hot and steamy, and when we're finally down to business she gets the munchies and retreats to the kitchen for some sea lion carcass.

[@jamesbohlman4297]

So when are Orca calves born?

[@DarkSevariant]

Like you said about their teeth, I don't think they were playing with the dead sea lion...they were tenderizing it. Bruising the skin, so it stretches, and thins out. They can take a 6 ft sea lion, and stretch it out to 9 feet, just by tenderizing the dead corpse. Also, it speeds up the internal decaying by breaking open stomach lining, and separating muscle from bone. Nice video.

[@AlaskaWhaleanddronetours]

Interesting take on it! I definitely could see them doing something like that!

[@daveyboy6985]

Yes their teeth don't have the cutting capabilities of a great white shark, which could bite the seal easily in half. So I can definitely see the need for them to tenderize their meat.

[@dragoslavradojkovic7882]

What lense did you use while filming on your gopro? Thanks!

[@AlaskaWhaleanddronetours]

A very expensive one, lol. A Zenmuse H20 mounted on a Matrice 300 RTK at 360 feet above sea level.

[@Sooopa_Doopa]

2:00 - "Orcas that were a little more interested in procreating than feeding..." Orca was trying to Netflix and chill

[@AlaskaWhaleanddronetours]

Lol, right?? I've seen them get it on a couple of times after killing something, and only once when they hadn't; I guess the blood gets them going?

[@damnvika5110]

Do residents and transient ever cross paths? And do they socialize with each other?

[@AlaskaWhaleanddronetours]

Good question! They certainly do cross paths, I've seen them passing through in the same areas before. Whether or not they socialize, is another question, and I don't really think they do. I believe that their dialects are pretty different to the point where they aren't really able to communicate, yet they still must recognize each other as orcas, as there hasn't been any documented attacks of Transient on Resident orcas.

[@Northstar-59]

@@AlaskaWhaleanddronetoursimagine a 800 pound male lion fighting against the pack of wolves

[@mauriciolorenzo4522]

Did you describe a chubby whale punishment? MUCH..

[@jeffcollopy1968]

Maybe the orca were shark fishing.

[@AlaskaWhaleanddronetours]

These are Transient Orca, and they're pretty specialized at feeding on marine mammals. I don't think there's really enough sharks for them to live on in Alaska.

[@hagvaktok]

Polar bears the same - eat the fat of a seal or walrus and maybe not much else. That's why the Arctic foxes follow them.

[@tylerspunucious7420]

There's been no evience of them eating bears.

[@AlaskaWhaleanddronetours]

I couldn't find any picture or documented evidence for that, but I do know that they have been documented eating deer and moose that were swimming between islands, and the bears swim between the islands too. According to the natives and some other people who grew up in Alaska and spent a lot of time on the water though, they say that they HAVE seen orca take down bears that were in the water. Interestingly enough though, one person told me that the Orca will kill bears in the water, but then not eat them. So, we might both be right.

[@jayb0nd007]

Animals kiil to eat but not orcas they play and enjoy before eating