The killer whales of the Gulf of Mexico: What do we know about them?

After another rare killer whale sighting off the coast of Florida in June, Research Fishery Biologist Keith Mullin discusses the prevalence of the animals in the Gulf and why sightings are so rare.

Costumers and crew aboard the Lady Em, a charter boat operating out of Destin Beach, Northwest Florida, witnessed a rare encounter with an orca pod in early June. The sighting took place around 7 p.m. that night near an underwater landmark called DeSoto Canyon in the Gulf of Mexico about 75 miles offshore.

Captain Travis Ream first noticed the creatures.

“I started seeing whale spouts coming up, but they were making humongous splashes, and there were more than one,” he said. “So it caught my eye and as I looked closer, I realized what it was.”

The video Ream was able to capture showcases at least four of the black and white animals breaching the surface of the water although he claims to have seen at least a dozen.

This encounter was the second sighting off the Florida coast this year, joining Captain Brice Peeples’ experience in South Florida in January. Marine science professionals regard these experiences as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

But why is seeing a killer whale in Florida’s waters so rare? Keith Mullin, a Research Fishery Biologist from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) seems to think it has to do far more with luck than their lack of presence in the Gulf.

“I hate to say ‘luck,’ but it is luck,” Mullin said. “You know, an interested person and the killer whales need to be at the same place, at the same time, and that just doesn't happen very often.”

Orcas are notorious for dwelling in colder areas around the world, such as the Pacific Northwest, and they are the most widely distributed member of the cetaceans family, which includes whales, dolphins and porpoises.

Killer whales get their name from sailors, who often just referred the them as “whale killers” due to their predatory behaviors towards other cetaceans. Orca, stems from the Latin name Orcinus orca.

Mullin suspects that a population of orcas calls a range of the Gulf of Mexico home.

“They live in tropical waters. It's not like they're just here by accident,” Mullin said. “This is their home, and we just don't see them that often, and it will take a long time for us to really get a grasp on a lot of aspects of their biology.”

Killer whales from different areas of the world have separate cultures that distinguish them from other pods. In some cases, these groups are even sub-classified as different species of the orca.

Due to the difficulty of studying orca behavior, there is not much known about the killer whales of the Gulf, “so it makes it very difficult to do studies on them because there are so few of them, and they're hard to get to,” Mullin said.

“Even if you gave me millions and millions of dollars, I couldn't go out and do a killer whale study in the Gulf of Mexico and guarantee you that I could, in 10 years, know as much as there is to know,” he added.

So if killer whales live in the Gulf, why are they so elusive? This is due to multiple factors of the orca lifestyle and the geography of the Gulf.

Orcas also often live in deep water. Because of this, Mullin argues it is easier to encounter them.

“The Caribbean Islands are volcanic, a lot of them, and so the water gets really deep, really fast. So the killer whales come close to shore where there are people, so they see them more often,” Mullin said. “Whereas in the Gulf of Mexico, at least from where I live, here in Mississippi, if I got on a boat, it would take me eight hours to get to where I could first possibly see a killer whale.”

There are also significantly fewer of the orcas living in the Gulf as opposed to other areas where they are found.

Mullin also said the same killer whales have been spotted in the Gulf for almost three decades.

“One killer whale we've seen over a span of 29 years, and other killer whales we've seen up to seven times,” he said “We don't think that there are just random killer whales wandering through. We think they live there, and we just happen to see them periodically.”