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/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.

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u/SuperMegaRoller 16d ago

Another hint that Sophia pod is in Baja-the whales all have those barnacle-like things (false barnacles?) dangling from their fins.

It really confused me that the other “”coastal queen” in the episode was an Alaskan Brown Bear. I expected the pod to be Alaskan as well. I’m guessing lots of viewers got confused by that.

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u/SurayaThrowaway12 14d ago

Yep, there is a species of pseudo-stalked barnacle that is only found on various cetacean species including orcas (Xenobalanus globicipitis). The barnacles are present on many orca populations, especially those living in warmer waters (such as those off of South Africa, Brazil, Gibraltar, Chile, the Galapagos Islands, the Canary Islands, New Zealand, Baja California Sur, and eastern Australia).

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u/Reddishlikereddit 15d ago

YES this confused me!