CALIFORNIA
rcas are in the news these days, with some attacking yachts off the coast of Spain. But Western orcas have also been busy, with one pod bringing bucket-list-brand delight to whale-watchers in the Pacific. The lucky folks aboard a Monterey Bay Whale Watch tour encountered 30 orcas who were apparently working off the calories following a lavish sea lion buffet. “It was pure energy and celebration,” Morgan Quimby of Monterey Bay Whale reported another large gathering — 24 orcas, spotted by the Oceanic Society near the Farallon Islands. So far, anyhow, California’s orcas, unlike their Atlantic cousins, don’t appear to be organizing any boat-bashing badassery. Responses to the Atlantic orcas’ shenanigans are circulating on social media, with many observers cheering them on. As @DrBlackDeer posted: “The excitement y’all feel about the whales here lately is the same excitement we feel as Natives when buffalo start tossing tourists, like welcome to the Land Back movement.”
