Kalain Ho­sein

Me­te­o­rol­o­gist/Re­porter

kalain.ho­sein@guardian.co.tt

Just af­ter mid­day on Mon­day, Oc­to­ber 23rd, 2023, a pod of Or­cas was spot­ted off Bayshore, north­west­ern Trinidad in the Gulf of Paria.

Pho­tos quick­ly cir­cu­lat­ed of the trio, breach­ing the top of the near calm seas un­der most­ly cloudy skies.

Al­so known as killer whales, are the largest species of the ocean­ic dol­phin fam­i­ly with a dis­tinc­tive black and white un­der­side. Males can grow as long as 9 me­tres and fe­males can grow as long as 8 me­tres, with their dor­sal fins, lo­cat­ed on their backs, can reach lengths up to 2 me­tres.

It is the sec­ond-most wide­ly dis­trib­uted mam­mal in the world and lives in all of the oceans on Earth. Or­cas are high­ly adapt­able and can live in wa­ters rang­ing from very deep to on­ly a few me­tres in depth, but they pre­fer coastal ar­eas of cold sur­face wa­ter that are high­ly pro­duc­ing in nu­tri­ents and aquat­ic life.

Or­cas are known to vis­it and even live in Trinidad and To­ba­go’s coastal wa­ters, with an­oth­er pod spot­ted ear­li­er this year on March 11th, 2023, off the Hi­bis­cus plat­form lo­cat­ed in Trinidad’s east­ern coastal wa­ters.