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Rare killer whale sighting off O’side coast

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Nature provided an “extraordinarily rare” treat this Thanksgiving week for a handful of Oceanside police and lifeguards: An up-close look at a pod of killer whales playing in waters off the coast.

“Oh my God, it was amazing,” Oceanside police Sgt. Jeff Brandt said Wednesday about the encounter, which took place Monday morning about a quarter-mile from shore. “Here we are, checking them out and they kept coming up to the boat and checking us out. It was like ‘Who are these people in our ocean?’ It was surreal.”

Brandt, who is with the police department’s Harbor Unit, said he was with two other officers when they saw the whales sometime between 10 a.m. and 11 a.m. The playful orcas — Brandt thinks it could have been as many as 20 — swam around and under the boat.

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“I’ve spent 44 years on the water,” he said, “and I’ve never seen orcas like this before.”

Researcher Alisa Schulman-Janiger said Wednesday afternoon that it’s incredibly rare for the type of orcas the crew spotted to be seen along the California coast. And it seems the pod is headed north: Schulman-Janiger excitedly said she was about to take a boat ride to see what she believed was the same pod of killer whales as they swam toward Point Dume in Malibu.

“These aren’t the kind you see off British Columbia,” she said. “This is another kind of killer whale that lives off Mexico’s waters and further south. There are very few sightings of them in California.”

The pod seen off Oceanside appear to be Eastern Tropical Pacific killer whales, Schulman-Janiger said on her Facebook page Wednesday afternoon.

Orcas are most abundant in colder ocean waters, but they are also found at lower densities in tropical and subtropical and offshore waters, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Oceanside Lifeguard Lt. Blake Faumuina was one of the lucky locals to spot the pod on Monday swimming about 400 yards off the shore between Buccaneer Beach and Oceanside Boulevard.

“Nineteen years as lifeguard, and this is the first time I have seen them this close to the beach,” he said, adding that perhaps five or 10 years ago, he saw a pod swimming in North County waters, perhaps two miles off the coast.

He said Oceanside lifeguards first saw the orcas about 10 a.m. So did the surfers.

“The first guard down there saw a lot of surfers ending their surfing session when they saw the black fins in the water,” Faumuina said.

Brandt said the Harbor Patrol boat picked up two lifeguards to give them a closer look at the animals. After the boat dropped the lifeguards back near the shore, the crew headed back out to find the pod again, but the orcas had moved on.

However, Brandt said the crew “came across a sea lion feasting on a leopard shark. The next day, we saw a sea lion feasting on a shovel nose shark.

“That amazing stuff happens out there every day, and we are blessed to be able to see it,” he added.

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