Nature
PUBLISHED
Ah, the ocean – so peaceful, so majestic... sometimes. This amazing video shows an orca punting a harbor seal 20 meters (80 feet) into the air with its tail fin.
The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content.The incredible footage was shot by Mike Walker, the owner of Roll Focus Productions, just off the coast of Victoria, British Columbia. The killer whale in question is a 20-year-old male known as T69C.
"We do a ton of whale watching, but this is fairly rare. Brett Soberg – owner of Eagle Wing – mentioned to us that it's only the fourth time he's seen an orca do that in about 20 years," Walker told Huffington Post.
Speaking to Earth Touch News, Dr Chris Parsons, a marine mammal expert, said: "They don't often eat the seals [after hitting them]. But when they hit Dall's porpoises, they do it to eviscerate them. They hit them so hard that their entrails pop out, which they leave behind after eating the muscle and blubber."
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