A Killer Whale Has Never Been Seen In The Caloosahatchee ~Until Now

posted 30 minutes ago
Categories: Wildlife

The above video is the story nicely done by Adam Pinsker of Fox 4 in Fort Myers.

So yesterday, I had just brought my boat in and put it on the lift... here is that scene...

My friend Hector was helping me put my boat up, and then we went out front. I moved a car into the driveway, and went back toward my office to work. The dogs were barking outside, and my dog barked (that usually means commotion outside), and I looked out the window to see a large fin next to my dock! I ran out on the dock in time to see a massive silhouette.. my guess about 25-30 feet long with a 3 foot fin sticking out of the water. I had left my phone on the charger, so I ran back to grab it to get footage. By the time I started shooting he was well on his way across the river. What I saw before that was amazing. The swell of water being pushed was massive. I know dolphins... this was no dolphin.

Here's best resolution of my footage:

And here's a second clip I took with the good camera (for reference purposes). I couldn't find him again at this point.

Right after I turned the camera off, he surfaced with all the beauty of an Orca coming out of the water enough to see it's white with a visual on the horizontal tale.

I had forwarded my clip to Fox News, and they came out to run the story. I had no idea that my sighting was rare or unheard of until I spoke later with Tom Pitchford of the FWC.

He forwarded this graphic to me on sightings, and clarified how improbable it is that a killer whale would be on the Florida coast, let alone 15 miles up the Caloosahatchee, but the footage is pretty convincing. He forwarded it around to others familiar with patterns of behavior and dorsal fin shape, because a killer whale in these waters might be at risk if it doesn't find its way back to deep water.

Just a couple weeks ago, a story that made national news was of 80+ false killer whales dying in the mangroves of South Florida.

There are conflicting reports as to how many killer whales actually swim the Gulf. Tom mentioned