A wildlife photographer out on a whale watching trip in waters off Seattle has captured dramatic video of a pod of killer whales hunting a seal that survived only by scrambling onto the stern of her boat.<\/p>\n
Charvet Drucker was on a rented 6-metre boat near her home on an island in the Salish Sea about 40 miles (64 kilometres) north-west of Seattle when she spotted a pod of at least eight killer whales, also known as orcas.<\/p>\n
The orcas’ coordinated movements and tail slaps suggested they were hunting.<\/p>\n
Ms Drucker used the zoom lens on her camera to spot a harbour seal that was trying to flee from the pod.\u00a0<\/p>\n
One of her shots showed the seal flying through the air above the scrum of orcas frothing the water, and she assumed she was witnessing the seal’s last moments alive.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
In this photo provided by Charvet Drucker, a seal leaps in the air to evade orca whales on Sunday, November 2, 2025, in the Saratoga passage between Camano and Whidbey Island, north of Seattle, Washington. (AP: Charvet Drucker)<\/p>\n
But as the orcas got closer to the boat, Ms Drucker and her group realised the pod was still chasing the seal.<\/p>\n
In line with wildlife boating regulations, they had cut the engine to prevent any injury to the whales.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The seal clambered out of the water and onto a swimming platform at the stern of the boat near the motor \u2014 claiming it as a life raft of sorts.<\/p>\n
Wildlife regulations also prohibit touching or interfering with the seal, but Ms Drucker began filming video.<\/p>\n
“You poor thing,” she can be heard saying, as the seal looks up at her.<\/p>\n
“You’re good, just stay, buddy.”<\/p>\n
The orcas did not give up immediately, but instead appeared to team up to rock the boat and make the seal fall off.\u00a0<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
In this photo provided by Charvet Drucker, a seal rests on her boat in the Saratoga passage between Camano and Whidbey Island, on November 2. (AP: Charvet Drucker)<\/p>\n
Ms Drucker’s phone video shows the orcas lining up and moving in on the boat with staggered dives to create waves.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The “wave-washing” technique has been documented by scientists since at least the 1980s, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.<\/p>\n
The seal on Ms Drucker’s boat slid off at least once, but managed to climb back on, and the orcas swam away after about 15 minutes.<\/p>\n
Ms Drucker has photographed dead seals in the mouths of orcas before, and she says she’s generally happy when the whales get to eat.<\/p>\n
“I’m definitely Team Orca, all day, every day. But once that seal was on the boat, I kind of turned (into) Team Seal,” she said in an interview with The Associated Press on Thursday, local time.<\/p>\n
The killer whales that hunt seals and a diverse set of marine animals in the area are known as Bigg’s or “transient” orcas.<\/p>\n
They are better fed then other more specialised species like the salmon-focused “resident” orcas who are on the endangered species list, according to NOAA.<\/p>\n
AP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A wildlife photographer out on a whale watching trip in waters off Seattle has captured dramatic video of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":134948,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[5532,92251,19473,92403,111,139,69,92402,147,30394,416,55057,92404,406],"class_list":{"0":"post-134947","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-boat","9":"tag-charvet-drucker","10":"tag-footage","11":"tag-killer-whale","12":"tag-new-zealand","13":"tag-newzealand","14":"tag-nz","15":"tag-orc","16":"tag-science","17":"tag-seal","18":"tag-video","19":"tag-video-streaming","20":"tag-washing","21":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134947","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=134947"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134947\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/134948"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=134947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=134947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=134947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}