The dramatic encounter was filmed by a whale-watching boat following transient or Bigg’s killer whales near Pedder Bay, west of Victoria. Mark Malleson, a whale-watching boat operator and research assistant at the US-based Center for Whale Research, tried to warn the boaters as the orcas headed toward their small vessel. “As the whales passed the boat, there was a sea lion nearby that apparently looked at the killer whales and maybe heard them,” Malleson told CTV News. “And there was panic.” At one point in the video, Malleson can be heard yelling at the boaters, “You’re going to want to get out of there!” Moments later, the large California sea lion, which Malleson estimated weighed about 340 pounds, began to leap out of the water. “He did a jump and landed on the side of the boat and then he did a second one which actually tipped the boat over on its side and I thought they had capsized for sure, but it was righted,” he said. “The sea lion ended up back in the water and is now half full of water trying to move.” The sea lion gave chase as the unidentified boaters headed straight back to shore, visibly distraught but physically unharmed. “It was a big California sea lion, a big male. It looked like 700 or 800 pounds,” the whale researcher said. “If this animal had landed on the boat, someone could have been seriously injured, just from the sheer size or the teeth.” Malleson said the encounter should serve as a warning to boaters in BC waters. as the population of transient killer whales has increased and become more active in recent years. “As a commercial entity we don’t want to interfere with a hunt,” he said. “If there’s a hunt, we have to stay away from the hunt so it doesn’t allow the seal or the finned seal – seal or sea lion – to get to the boat because I’ve seen it before where they’ll get on the back of a boat.” Jared Towers, a mammal researcher with Fisheries and Oceans Canada, says the recent increase in transient orca activity “is the new normal” for the Vancouver Island area. “It really highlights the importance of understanding marine regulations and following them,” he added. Malleson said it’s possible the boaters were simply unaware of the danger they were in until it was too late. “I don’t think they really knew the situation,” he said. “They were in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
