A family of three killer whales including the well-known matriarch known as “Split Fin” was spotted off Narooma on Tuesday evening.
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Skipper Nick Ingersole of Narooma Charters was conducting a penguin tour of Montague Island when he spotted some humpback whale activity to the south.
Once off the Fullers Beach area, he then noticed a pod of three killer whales, consisting of a male, a female and smaller individual.
The female had a distinctive damaged dorsal fin, split right down the middle, although it looked to be an old injury possibly sustained when she was younger.
Mr Ingersole speculated they could have been a family with the smallest whale the calf of the male and female.
And the orcas seemed preoccupied possible feeding on something else.
“A mother humpback and her calf was past but the pod didn’t do anything and kept swimming around in circles,” he said.
Whale researcher and compiler of the Australian Orca Database, David Donnelly was excited to see the photos of “Split Fin” and her pod on the Narooma News website.
Mr Donnelly conducted his first research trip off Eden exactly 20 years ago and continues to be involved in research most recently tagging humpbacks off Eden for the University of Queensland.
He said the female killer whale was first spotted in 1996 as an adult and so is believed to be at least 30 years old.
She was considered to be the matriarch of her pod that usually numbered anywhere from six to 15 individuals, and she was also known to be with the same alpha male all these years.
Her range extended as far north of Jervis Bay and as far south as the Derwent River in Tasmania, but there had also been sightings in Port Phillip Bay as well as off Eden and Mallacoota.
While her pods movements were loosely tied to the humpback migration, her pod had only been seen feeding on a humpback calf once and that was off Green Cape at Eden.
She had been documented feeding on school sharks and the activity described off Narooma on Tuesday was not unusual and she could have been feeding on fish such as kingfish or salmon, he said.
Mr Donnelly said it was fantastic to get another sighting of “Split Fin”.
She was last seen with a calf believed to be her own in 2005 and she could now be too old to be still breeding, with orcas believed have a life span of around 90 to 100 years.
“It’s always great to get another sighting and to find out she is still going and hopefully she has got a few years left in her,” he said.
The humpback whale southerly migration meanwhile is now tapering off, but it had been a great season and Mr Ingersole has personally had spotted whales each trip.
Montague Island was also now alive with seabird activity, including at least 30 or 40 nesting penguins, along with shearwaters, gulls and terns.
Find out more about whale watching, regulations and sightings at www.wildaboutwhales.com.au
