A killer whale enthusiast gives his tips on the best places to spot orcas a a pod of the mammals that was spotted off the coast of Fraserburgh is now on the move.
Three-year enigma of ‘Scottish’ killer whales solved
Colin Smeeton
Some of the ‘mystery killer whales’ encountered in Scotland in 2018.
Colin Smeeton
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A mystery identifying a pod of killer whales, spotted in Vatersay in Scotland and Børøyfjorden in Norway, has finally been solved using data from the Norwegian Orca Survey and the Scottish Killer Whale Catalogue.
Previously unknown to Scottish and Norwegian scientists, the pod has now been identified using records responsible for the first killer whale match made between the two countries.
BBC News
Published
image captionThe pod was photographed on Norway s west coast earlier this year
A mystery pod of killer whales spotted off the coast of Scotland three years ago has finally been found - off the west coast of Norway.
Six orcas were photographed on Norway s west coast earlier this year but had a colouration on their backs unlike other animals in the area.
After consulting Scottish records, the Norwegian Orca Survey matched three of them to a Vatersay sighting in 2018.
Experts have said that a three-year enigma had now been solved.
Photographs of the killer whales in Børøyfjorden were brought to the Norwegian Orca Survey by citizen scientist Asmund Aasheim.
A MYSTERY pod of killer whales from Scotland has been spotted off the coast of Norway. The discovery solves a three-year enigma after the Hebridean Whale and Dolphin Trust (HWDT) made the last known sighting of the pod – never before seen in Scottish waters – off Vatersay on Scotland’s west coast in June 2018. The breakthrough came on July 10 after citizen scientist Asmund Aasheim photographed a pod of six whales in Boroyfjorden in southern Norway and sent his pictures to the Norwegian Orca Survey. Dr Eve Jourdain found that the killer whales were not familiar from Norwegian records. Dr Jourdain looked further afield after she found the colouration on the whales backs, known as a saddle patch, looked different to that of killer whales normally seen around Norway. She found a match in the Scottish Killer Whale Catalogue – a document containing images of all known living killer whales seen in Scottish waters.
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