First shots: orca released from “Whale Jail” joined wild pod

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First shots: orca released from “Whale Jail” joined wild pod

August 30, 2019

On August 20, 2019, during the study of bowhead whales in the Shantar Sea, members of the Marine Mammals Council – Grigory Tsidulko, Svetlana Artemyeva and Stanislav Zakharov discovered a an orca with satellite tag in Konstantin Bay. She was in a group with seven other killer whales and participated in the hunt. In front of the observers, the family caught two seals, which were divided between the group members and eaten. Analysis of photographs taken in “Whale Jail” in Srednyaya Bay and those taken in the wild allowed us to identify the tagged orca as Vasilyevna – this is a female released into the Sea of ​​Okhotsk in the very first release on June 27 with a male orca named Leha.

Location of other orcas and beluga whales on August 29:

2 orcas from the last release – Harya and Forest moved 50 km from the place of release and move towards Sakhalin. The trajectory of their movement is very similar to the one that showed Alexandra – the youngest female orca, she was released in the second group on July 16th

The belugas whales from the last release release are located 25 km away from Cape Perovsky and move in the opposite direction from the orcas, towards Alexandra Bay.

The youngest orca Alexandra reached the Shantar Islands, where other orcas from whale jail are currently present. Alexandra is about 40 km from the three orcas Zoya, Tihon and Gaika, who hunt in the region of Udskaya Bay.