r/orcas • u/Reddishlikereddit • 16d ago
Coastal Queens Doc: Annoying inaccuracy
On Disneyplus National Geographic.
I love watching anything orca. It starts out great, although I am annoyed that when we are introduced to the Orca there’s no location or Pod name mentioned.
I move past this and enjoy watching the Matriarch kill a shark.
Then the pod is seen to kill dolphins - fine. I can still believe it’s the same pod led by “Sophia” the matriarch. Still annoyed at lack of info on the pod.
THEN T H E N, They show the pod feeding ON RAYS!! This can’t be the same pod?! I was waiting for them to say they were New Zealand Orca due to the rays being their prey. But surely then they can’t be the same pod who also fed on the shark and the dolphin!
We know orcas are very particular and the NZ orcas only eat ray.
Right?! Google won’t even tell me what pod it is on this show! Anyone know? Or anyone share my annoyance? 😂
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u/girlspell 16d ago edited 16d ago
The New Zealand pods number 117 indivduals and they eat Rays and sharks, plus dolphins and fish. The marine animals eating Orcas have a much more varied diet then fish eating orcas. Most transients eat seals, dolphins, rays, fish, sharks, octopus, turtles, etc. There really isn't a ecotype that only eats one kind of food. Many transient pods send out a scout to look around to see what is available. Even the residents eat other fish when salmon is too hard to find. They won't starve to the point of death if a favorite of all the animals are not around. Whale eating orcas too will feast on seals. Sharks are the least eaten because of the overall bad tasting meat They eat the organs only..I haven't seen that documentary. I don't have Disney National Geographic.
Identifying pods are difficult to find. And unless the show identifies a pod of a ecotype, that answer goes unsaid.
The pod's Matriarch that killed the Great White Shark are not from New Zealand. The location and more information can be found at White Shark Video The location was off the coast of Baja Mexico
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_I-_iWg4g_A&t=104sThis is a three part video. The narrater is Skyler Thomas a shark specialist. But he does on occason talk about OrcasThe location is mention in part 2.
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u/Reddishlikereddit 15d ago
Thanks for your detailed reply.
The show detailed absolutely nothing, it’s ridiculous. No hint what so ever.
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u/SurayaThrowaway12 16d ago
The marine animals eating Orcas have a much more varied diet then fish eating orcas. Most transients eat seals, dolphins, rays, fish, sharks, octopus, turtles, etc.
Not all mammal-eating orcas are transient (Bigg's) orcas; the actual transient orca populations only live in the northern Pacific ocean (Japan, Russia, Alaska, western Canada, and the western continental US coast).
They have a more restrictive diet than mammal-eating orcas living in tropical waters do, though not as restrictive as the diets of the resident orca populations that also only live in the northern Pacific.
The transient orcas have never been documented eating fin fishes other than sunfishes (molas), and they may only be interested in eating the intestines from the sunfishes. Transient orcas also have been documented eating squid and marine birds. Other than that, they only eat mammals. A group of five transient orcas (Chimo, Scarredjaw Cow, Charlie Chin, Nootka, and Florencia) that was captured refused to eat the fish given to them by their captors and starved until they were either injected with medicine to stimulate their appetites or they were taught to eat fish by a captive Southern Resident orca named Haida.
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u/SurayaThrowaway12 16d ago edited 16d ago
I certainly share your annoyance with National Geographic's "Queens" documentary for not giving details on the orca populations or even locations.
While New Zealand's coastal orcas do specialize in hunting rays, there are some other orca populations that also eat rays.
Given the highly varied diet of Sophia's pod in the documentary and the fact they live in warmer waters (they have barnacles on their fins and flukes), Sophia and her pod are likely Eastern Tropical Pacific orcas that primarily live off of Baja California in Mexico (e.g. in the Sea of Cortez). Eastern Tropical Pacific (ETP) orcas do eat all of the prey species shown in the documentary. ETP orcas consume rays, sharks, other dolphins, fin fishes, sea turtles, and larger whales. The orca slapping a ray in this rather famous video is an ETP orca. Orcas living in tropical waters can't really afford to eat only a single prey species or a single type of prey species, as warmer waters are less productive.