A small pod of orcas was recently spotted off the coast of Kauai, Hawaii, surprising a team of marine researchers as this particular species is rarely seen in the area.

The animals first appeared in the channel between Kauai and Niihau where Robin Baird and other Cascadia scientists are conducting a three-week project for the Navy to gauge the effect of sonar training on various species of marine mammals. The project involves tagging tooth-whale species, including false killer whales, short-finned pilot whales and Blainville's beaked whales, most of which are little known off Kauai. The orcas seen appeared to be chasing a rough-toothed dolphin and at one point two of them circled the researchers' boat, coming within about 10 feet. They stayed around for nearly an hour before disappearing.

One of the females appeared to have cookie-cutter shark bites behind her blowhole, she was travelling with three offspring: an adult male, sub-adult male and a juvenile and it was the first time the Cascadia researchers have spotted killer whales in the ocean off the main Hawaiian Islands since May 2003, when four killer whales appeared off Kona.

Orcas are most common in coastal waters at northern latitudes such was Washington state, British Columbia and Alaska but some do travel thousands of miles throughout the tropical Pacific and are actually distributed worldwide from the tropics to high-latitude waters.

An average of two killer whales is seen around the main Hawaiian Islands every year and a documented study shows that there has been 21 orca sightings between 1994 and 2004 off Hawaii island, Kauai, Niihau and Lanai.

Image (c) R Baird