Offshore: A third population of orcas in the northeast Pacific was discovered in 1988, when a humpback whale researcher observed them in open water. As their name suggests, they travel far from shore and feed primarily on schooling fish. However, because they have large, scarred and nicked dorsal fins resembling those of mammal-hunting transients, it may be that they also eat mammals and sharks. They have mostly been encountered off the west coast of Vancouver Island and near Haida Gwaii. Offshores typically congregate in groups of 20–75, with occasional sightings of larger groups of up to 200. Little is known about their habits, but they are genetically distinct from residents and transients. Offshores appear to be smaller than the others, and females are characterized by dorsal fin tips that are continuously rounded.
Separate fish-eating and mammal-eating orca munities also exist off the coast of the Russian Far East and Hokkaido, Japan. Russian orcas are monly seen around the Kamchatka Peninsula and Commander Islands. Over 2,000 individual resident-like orcas and 130 transient-like orcas have been identified off Russia. At least 195 individual orcas have been cataloged in the eastern tropical Pacific, ranging from Baja California and the Gulf of California in the north to the northwest coast of South America in the south and west towards Hawaii. Orcas appear to regularly occur off the Galápagos Islands. Orcas sighted in Hawaiian waters may belong to a greater population in the central Pacific.
North Atlantic and adjacent
Orca tail-slapping in Vestfjorden, Norway
At least 15,000 whales are estimated to inhabit the North Atlantic. In the Northeast Atlantic, two orca ecotypes have been proposed. Type 1 orcas consist of seven haplotypes and include herring-eating orcas of Norway and Iceland and mackerel-eating orcas of the North Sea, as well as seal-eating orcas off Norway. Type 2 orcas consist of two haplotypes, and mainly feed on baleen whales.
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