Orca rises above pickle of a childhood to become brave hunter

Tuesday, 26 June 2018

Pickle, an orca with only half a dorsal fin, has been spotted in the Hauraki Gulf

An 'incredibly bold' orca who lost half her dorsal fin in a mystery accident has treated whale watchers to a rare sighting in Auckland's Hauraki Gulf.

Pickle, who is one of fewer than 200 orca now living in New Zealand waters, surfaced next to a sea safari on Friday as part of a 15-strong pod.

Nobody knows how the plucky ocean dweller ended up with a jagged half-fin, but a scientist who's studied her since calf-hood said she hadn't let it slow her down.

'Pickle is incredibly bold … she appears to have a little bit of an attitude,' Orca Research Trust founder Ingrid Visser said.

Pickle is one of only three orca in New Zealand waters known to have half a dorsal fin. The other two are A1 and Ragged Top.

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Pickle is eight-years-old and was named by a group of schoolchildren.

'If you were to put it in human terms, you might say she runs around thinking 'Well, I survived losing my dorsal fin, I'm pretty bullet-proof.'

The 8-year-old orca, who was born in September 2010, was given her name by a group of school children because she was 'as cute as a little pickle'.

The dorsal fin on a male orca can grow to be over one metre in length.

But although loveable, Pickle's maturity was beyond her years. She had a 'rambunctious' disposition and knack for hunting.

'When she was only 1-year-old, she was already successfully catching eagle rays and stingrays. You don't normally see that until they're 2 or 3 years old,' Visser said.

'She'll take a lot of risks while hunting.'

Mystery would always surround the loss of her fin, but one thing could be guaranteed - it would have hurt at the time.

'If you suddenly remove part of the body, they're no longer hydrodynamically perfect so they have to compensate for that,' Visser said. 'It's painful when it happens.'

Auckland Whale & Dolphin Safari's marine research officer, Catherine Lea, said the loss of a dorsal fin could be the result of human interference from boats or fishing lines.

Because sightings were few and far between, it was hard to know for sure.

'These guys [orca] spend a lot of time at sea but we only get a little snapshot into their lives.'

Orcas, commonly referred to as killer whales, are the largest member of the dolphin family and can grow up to 9 metres in length.

The New Zealand population of 150 to 200 individuals is home to only three known orca with half a dorsal fin - Pickle, A1 and Ragged Top.

Pickle's older brother, Funky Monkey, was also spotted in Friday's pod.