Pod Of Killer Whales Trapped In Frozen Sea Off Japan Struggle To Breath As Helpless Authorities Watch
Authorities in Japan are struggling to save around a dozen orcas also known as killer whales, including calves that have been trapped in drift ice.
According to Japan's NHK World, the pod was found trapped by ice floes off Japan's northern main island of Hokkaido.
Killer whales trapped in ice?
The Japan Coast Guard was notified by local fishermen on Tuesday morning that the orcas were trapped off Rausu Town in eastern Hokkaido.
According to local officials, the thick ice had made it impossible for the coast guard, to attempt to free the mammals.?
¡°We have no choice but to wait for the ice to break up and for them to escape that way,¡± a Rausu official told NHK.
Drone video goes viral
A video taken by a resident shows the animals struggling between ice floes about a kilometer offshore.
Drone visuals showed the pod, which contains at least three calves, closely packed together and appeared to be sticking their heads out of the water to breathe.
According to Seiichiro Tsuchiya, a marine life expert, he came across the stranded pod while conducting research into the local sea lion population.
¡°I saw about 13 killer whales with their heads sticking out of a hole in the ice. They seemed to be struggling to breathe, and it looked like they included three or four calves,¡± he told NHK.
Similar incident happened in 2005
This is not the first time Rausu, a Unesco world heritage site famed for its abundant wildlife has seen orca pods trapped in the frozen sea.
In 2005, a pod of orcas was trapped in an ice sheet in Rausu and most of them had died.
Orcas are dolphins, not whales
Orcas are the largest member of the oceanic dolphin family and got their name as killer whales from ancient sailors' who observed them hunting and preying in groups on larger whale species.?
They are found in every ocean in the world and are the most widely distributed of all whales and dolphins.
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