{"id":77082,"date":"2025-08-12T11:59:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-12T11:59:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/77082\/"},"modified":"2025-08-12T11:59:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-12T11:59:08","slug":"orca-named-old-thom-swims-with-dolphins-off-mass-nbc-boston","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/77082\/","title":{"rendered":"Orca named Old Thom swims with dolphins off Mass. \u2013 NBC Boston"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Gloucester fisherwoman and her husband saw a legendary orca known to New England’s waters \u2014 but not often seen \u2014 and called the experience lifechanging. <\/p>\n

Seeing that kind of whale is a rare sight on the water, even for seasoned fishermen, and Donna Piraino couldn’t believe it was happening on Sunday. She called it a “life-changing, phenomenal, amazing, bucket list-type of thing that you’d want to see in your life, especially when you’re out on the water as much as we are.”<\/p>\n

She and her husband are commercial fisherman who were looking for bluefin tuna Sunday afternoon on Stellwagen Bank, an ocean feeding ground. A pod of dolphins caught their eye, and then they saw the giant dorsal fin. <\/p>\n

“I said, ‘Oh my God, I think it’s an orca,'” Piraino recalled.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"An<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\tDonna Piraino<\/p>\n

\t\t\tDonna Piraino<\/p>\n

An orca whale known as Old Thom surfacing off of Massachusetts on Sunday, Aug. 10, 2025.<\/p>\n

About six feet of fin and longer than their 27-foot boat \u2014 that’s Old Thom<\/a>, one of the only orcas regularly seen in the waters of the North Atlantic.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tA killer whale spotted swimming around a fisherman’s boat is no stranger to the waters.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

“It seems like Old Tom is seen almost every year in kind of like the greater New England area, which is really interesting,” said Amy Warren, a scientific program officer at the New England Aquarium.<\/p>\n

Biologists confirm it’s him based on markings and the fact that he’s hanging with dolphins, not other orcas.<\/p>\n

“It’s a big deal. And I think it’s because it’s so rare, but it happens often enough that it’s really all about timing of whether you’re in the right place at the right time,” Warren said.<\/p>\n

Piraino, one of the lucky ones, is sharing her tale \u2014 even if she’s short on the words to describe it: “It’s a feeling you feel when something amazing happens to you. And it’s a good thing. We need more good things in life. We need more good things.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Gloucester fisherwoman and her husband saw a legendary orca known to New England’s waters \u2014 but not…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":77083,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[5830,15773,2001,79,201],"class_list":{"0":"post-77082","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-animals-and-wildlife","9":"tag-atlantic-ocean","10":"tag-massachusetts","11":"tag-science","12":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77082","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77082"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77082\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77083"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}