{"id":295899,"date":"2025-11-20T17:38:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-20T17:38:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/295899\/"},"modified":"2025-11-20T17:38:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-20T17:38:07","slug":"seal-flops-onto-photographers-boat-to-escape-hunting-orca-pod-she-captured-it-all-on-camera","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/295899\/","title":{"rendered":"Seal Flops onto Photographer’s Boat to Escape Hunting Orca Pod\u2013She Captured it All on Camera"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Seal in Florida \u2013 Credit: Robert Woeger via Unsplash<\/p>\n

An experienced wildlife photographer with a penchant for marine mammals like whales recently bore witness to a lone seal miraculously surviving a hunt by 8 killer whales.<\/p>\n

Far more than just bearing witness, it was more or less the photographer\u2019s presence that allowed for it to happen, as the seal escaped the jaws of the hunters by clambering up onto the boat.<\/p>\n

Shared with AP<\/a>, Charvet Drucker told her story of the encounter that began last week on a whale-watching boat. About 40 miles northwest of Seattle in the Salish Sea, she spotted a pod of orcas, also called killer whales, and observed behavior that suggested they were hunting.<\/p>\n

Quickly attaching her telescopic lens, the orcas splashed into action, attempting to secure a meal out of an adult seal that was thrown into the air among the scrum of black and white bodies. Her shutter rang out in her ears as Drucker observed what she thought were the seal\u2019s last moments of life.<\/p>\n

Suddenly, the pod altered their course and headed straight for the boat, and she realized they were still hunting the seal. Following marine life regulations, the skipper killed the engines as the pod approached so as not to risk hurting them.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s when the seal flopped out of the water and onto the flat panel at the back of the boat like it would a piece of ice in the sea.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou poor thing,\u201d Drucker can be heard saying, as the seal looks up at her. \u201cYou\u2019re good, just stay, buddy.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the wild, orcas have ways of dislodging seals from tiny icebergs, and they went straight into their playbook even though the safe haven was a boat not an iceberg. They began to move close to the boat and execute a series of staggered dives that create subsurface waves which can rock a seal off its perch.<\/p>\n

UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL: Beached Whale Faced 6 Hours of Lethal Sun and Dryness, Locals Form Bucket Brigade to Save it<\/a><\/p>\n

First documented in 1980, the orca\u2019s strategy worked, but none among them were fast enough to catch the seal during the brief moments that it fell back into the water. After 15 minutes or so the orcas left.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not the first time Drucker has witnessed this behavior, and usually she accepts the natural order of prey-predator interaction and is happy when the orcas get to eat.<\/p>\n

MORE WHALEWATCHING STORIES: Onlookers \u2018in Awe\u2019 After Orca Pod Leaps Out of Water Just Meters From the Beach \u2013 WATCH<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m definitely Team Orca, all day, every day. But once that seal was on the boat, I kind of turned (into) Team Seal,\u201d she said in an interview with AP last Thursday.<\/p>\n

Apparently, orcas near Washington that feed on seals are migratory, or \u201ctransient\u201d orcas, and tend to be better fed than \u201cresident\u201d orcas that seem to specialize in eating salmon.<\/p>\n

WATCH the interview and slideshow below\u2026 <\/p>\n

SHARE This Woman\u2019s Incredible View Of These Hunting Orcas\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Seal in Florida \u2013 Credit: Robert Woeger via Unsplash An experienced wildlife photographer with a penchant for marine…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":295900,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[2837,49,48,31002,10000,66,8097,16580,323],"class_list":{"0":"post-295899","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-animals","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-marine-life","12":"tag-photography","13":"tag-science","14":"tag-top-videos","15":"tag-whales","16":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295899","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=295899"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295899\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/295900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=295899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=295899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=295899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}