There be whales here!

It was a fish story that even veteran boat captains found fascinating: As many as 200 killer whales feeding on tuna in the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

“It was like being at Sea World, because they’d come right up to the boat,” said Eddie Hall, captain of the Shady Lady, the 60-foot charter boat that spotted the shiny black sea beasts with white eye patches and undersides. “It was pretty neat.”
It also was hard for some skeptics to believe: Orcas, as killer whales also are known, typically are thought to live in cold water and eat seals.

But Hall’s description of what he saw last Oct. 31 was no tall tale: A government biologist who saw video taken from Hall’s boat confirmed the captain had spotted the creatures. And last week that same scientist, Keith Mullin, explained at a public meeting in Orange Beach, Ala., that yes, contrary to common perceptions, killer whales really do live in the Gulf, far from land.
Mullin, whose outfit has been working for years to get an accurate count of the Gulf’s whale population, said it may be time to dramatically increase estimates on how many killer whales are lurking in the deep waters off the Gulf Coast. He’s taking part in a research expedition this summer that could determine whether his hunch is right.

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Scientists believe the whales have been in the Gulf for years, Mullin said, and that their presence — though startling to some anglers — isn’t a sign of climate change or other manmade conditions. Their relatively small population and the speed at which pods move make them difficult to count, which could have led to lower estimates.
“I’ve got good records of them in the Caribbean. We see them almost exclusively in deep water, 600 feet and more,” Mullin said. “I think they’ve always been there. It’s just in the last 15 to 20 years that we’ve been trying to study them.”