WATCH: Transient killer whales kept about 40 dolphins trapped in Heriot Bay for four hours Monday evening as dozens of people looked on.
Serenity has returned to the marina in Heriot Bay but people are still talking about what happened there Monday evening.
“I’ve never witnessed that. Never in all my guiding career,” said Jen Smalley who recorded parts of the scene as it unfolded.
“I compared it to watching an IMAX movie,” said Mary Anne Fenniak who was visiting from Edmonton.
Over three dozen dolphins became trapped and frantic in the marina as four transient killer whales watched them from about 300 metres farther out.
“The T-90s, which are the Biggs, the mammal-eating orca, were stalking about forty Pacific Whitesides here in the bay,” added Smalley, who has guided up and down the B.C. coast for years.
Dolphins are part of the killer whale’s diet (seals make up 62 per cent) but to see it all unfold so close to shore and in person was rare.
The whales were patient as well, waiting for almost four hours for the dolphins to make their move.
“The sun was just about to go down, like a couple of minutes and then the dolphins decided to make a break for it and all of a sudden they surfaced, they came out and they were in a big pattern and they were zigzagging and there was a group way ahead and there was a group at the back and they split and the group that was ahead were the ones that got hit by the orca,” said Smalley.
The whales attacked the dolphins killing at least one of them.
“I was definitely pulling for the dolphins,” said Fenniak.
Dean Stoltz
