Charvet Drucker was watching a pod of orcas, also known as killer whales, off Camano Island in Washington, when she found herself unwittingly involved in their hunt.
In an act of desperate genius, a harbor seal threw itself onto the boat like movie bank robbers throwing themselves into the backseat of the getaway car and yelling, “Drive!”
Drucker was photographing the hunt in advance of its seemingly inevitable conclusion. As the orcas got closer, she cut the engines, as per regulations. The seal headed right for the vessel, quickly pulling itself aboard.
A shocked Drucker began to film on her phone as the frustrated orcas circled the boat while the seal hunkered down. The orca pod swam back and forth for some time, attempting to rock the boat through their coordinated movements and shake the seal loose. It did slip off in a tense moment, but managed to get back aboard before the pod caught it.
After about 20 minutes, the orcas gave up. When the coast was clear, the victorious pinniped slipped back into the sea, and Drucker uploaded the footage to her Instagram:
The fleeing seal was flung into the air by thrashing orcas. Photo: Charvet Drucker
Stowaway seals
This is hardly the first time that a wily seal has saved itself in this fashion. In 2016, Nick Templeman’s boating excursion off Vancouver Island was watching a pod of orcas. The whales appeared to be hunting something. Suddenly that something, a seal, appeared and made a beeline for the boat and clambered aboard. The orcas circled the boat for some time before eventually giving up, leaving the seal free to slip back into the water.
Two years later, another boating excursion in the same area was waiting for an orca pod to kill a seal it had been chasing. They had no plans to interfere with the hunt, but the seal made them unwitting accomplices when it likewise hopped aboard their vessel.
In a strange twist, Nick Templeman was in a neighboring boat at the time. He watched events repeat themselves, as the orcas circled and waited, then eventually gave up. This time, the seal did not disembark immediately but stayed aboard until they reached the dock.
Given our historical propensity for collecting their fur and blubber, seals have fairly good reason to avoid humans. But as they say, any port in a storm.
