Watchers have whale of a time

Orca pod: four sightings off coast in last 10 days as fine weather establishes seasonal record

IT’S A little like buses, you don’t see killer whales in an age and then several come along at once.

There have been four sightings of killer, or Orca, whales off the Irish coast in the last 10 days. There are usually only a half dozen or so throughout the year.

On Sunday, the crew of the Navy’s LE Ciara spotted what looked like a pod of five whales off Erris Head in Co Mayo.

The same whales had been seen last year off the Isle of Skye near Scotland.

Photographs taken by the crew identified two of the killer whales “Floppy Fin” and “Nicola”. They were cross-referenced with photographs taken by whalewatchers in Scotland which were passed on to a database kept by the Irish Whale and Dolphin Group (IWDG).

Floppy Fin was first identified by a Scottish-based whalewatcher 30 years ago and is now aged about 50.

The animals are distinguished from one another by the size and shape of their dorsal fin and adjacent saddle patch.

The name killer whale is one of the great misnomers of the animal kingdom. They are neither killers (of humans at least) nor whales. They are, in fact, the largest species of dolphin.

The good weather has made for a record number of sightings this summer of whales, dolphins and porpoises. There were 264 recorded sightings in June and all reports have not been collated yet, against an average of 162 in June over the previous five years, according to the IWDG.

One of the highlights was the spotting of a separate pod of Orca whales off Achill on June 24th.

The previous day a humpback whale was released by fishermen off the Co Wexford coast in a collaborative rescue involving anglers, divers and lifeboat volunteers.

IWDG sightings co-ordinator Pádraig Whooley said the proliferation of sightings was down to human endeavour rather than any natural phenomena, and was not indicative of an increase in population. “You always have to be careful about assuming there are more whales and dolphins around. The numbers are the same, but our ability to see them has improved,” he said.

“What people see in the summer is almost completely determined by how calm the sea is. The whales and dolphins are still out there. Our ability to actually see them diminishes when the seas get rough.”

But he confessed to having “not an idea” as to why there had been so many sightings of killer whales recently.

Killer facts: about close-knit groups

- Killer Whales grow to a maximum of 9.5m (31ft) in length. They are not hunted commercially and are not an endangered species.

- A male killer whale is distinguished by his dorsal fin which is so tall that it can have a wave or a kink in it.

- Killer whales have never been known to attack humans, though they do so in a 1977 horror film called Orca. It was released two years after Jaws.

- Killer whales prey on marine mammals such as sea lions, seals, walruses, sharks and other whales. Whalers used to call them whale-killer which has since been inverted to bestow the inaccurate name killer whale.