Dolphin-hunting orcas show up off Newport Beach

You never know where the black-and-white beauties will show up to feast.

A pod of orcas usually found in warmer waters off Mexico have been hanging around Southern California in the last week and were spotted in Newport Beach on Sunday, Dec. 17, continuing their prey on dolphins.

Charter boats were searching the waters on Monday hoping to see the black-and-white marine mammals again before the weather turns this week. The pod by Monday afternoon were spotted further south in San Diego.

The Eastern Tropical Pacific orcas were first spotted off Palos Verdes on Dec. 11 and in the same area through the past week, playfully approaching boats and savagely hunting dolphins, showing how they earned their “killer whale” moniker.

Not all orcas hunt marine mammals, but this specific pod is known for their stealth skills in eating both common and bottlenose dolphins.

Killer whales are the largest member of the dolphin family.

They are a rare sight off local waters, the last time they were spotted off Orange County was in 2019 and before that in 2018, both times exhibiting similar behavior.

The orcas seen more frequently off local waters are known as “transients,” but these Eastern Tropical Pacific orcas are distinguishable by their darker saddle patches and smaller eye patches.

After seeing them earlier in the week, Newport Coastal Adventure captain Ryan Lawler was up near Oxnard working on a new boat, but came across the same pod up near Anacapa Island, he said.

They were again spotted on Saturday moving south off the South Bay. On Sunday, he launched an early-morning boat trip, searching from Oceanside to near Catalina and in the Santa Monica Bay, covering nearly 200 miles during the day-long excursion.

The group out on the water was feeling exhausted and defeated when a call came over the radio at about 3 p.m., Lawler said.

Captain Mike Owens of the Ocean Explorer had spotted the pod, just a few miles off Newport Beach’s coastline.

“He found them just about six miles off of Newport, which is where no one really was expected them – but they do that, they do their own thing and they pop up wherever they feel like,” Lawler said. “Miraculously, the whales popped up right in front of our home port and we got to watch them for about an hour.”

That’s part of why sightings of orcas are so special, Lawler said.

“They do everything on their own terms,” he said. “We don’t know where they’re going…It makes it that much more of a thrill to find them, because it’s not a given that we’re going to be able to find these wild animals.”

Lawler said the pod went right past a 5-foot blue shark and continued its hunt for dolphins.

“Every time they hear dolphins around them, they go into dolphin stalking mode,” he said.

It’s the balance of nature, he said, the way of the apex predator.