Why Do Killer Whales Travel Together? Killer Whales in the Bremer Bay population will travel together as one cohesive unit to increase opportunities of finding food. It is a vast area and the importance of working together as a family pod is vital for them to work in an efficient manner. Energy conservation is a very important element to the daily activities of a Killer Whale and if all members of the family are travelling together and foraging there are more eyes and hears on the lookout covering as much area as possible. Today we firstly joined with Cookie and her family pod who were quietly foraging and we smiled to see young Oreo travelling just like the adults. Oreo is Cookie’s youngest calf and although already 6+ years of age is starting to act more and more like the adults in the family pod.
Oreo doesn’t have any younger siblings as yet but hopefully in time we will see one of the other females welcome a newborn into the family pod and Oreo can take on the role of teacher and playmate for the youngster. It was a beautiful day and we had the opportunity of joining with Queen and her family as they also settled into a day of foraging. The females in this family pod are brilliant hunters and their calves are learning from a very young age the importance of travelling together and the particular tactics their family uses to find food. In-between foraging dives they would calmly approach our bow and spend some time hanging out with us before preparing for the next exploration dive. Albatross, Shearwaters and the occasional Sunfish were also busy foraging today as they stretched out on the big blue with these calm conditions making for a beautiful day out on the water.
