SAN DIEGO (FOX 5/KUSI) — Humpback whales were spotted feeding on a giant bait ball of anchovies off the coast of San Diego Sunday. It’s a rare sight to see in Southern California, according to experts.
“A lot of the whale watchers here have only seen this stuff on screens, including myself,” said Captain Michael Merriam with San Diego Whale Watch. “I had never seen this behavior in Southern California.”
Captain Merriam grabbed his camera and began filming the phenomenon as dozens of people on board witnessed it too.
“We normally don’t have the abundance of sardine or northern anchovy that they have in the Pacific Northwest,” he said.
Humpback whales usually feed in places like Alaska, Monterrey Bay or British Columbia where there are more food sources for them.
“Basically, you have northern anchovies all being corralled by hundreds and hundreds of long-beaked common dolphin. Once they’re in those type bait balls, that’s when you see these humpbacks exploding from underneath the bait ball with their mouths wide open, their throat, pleats expanded and just engulfing hundreds and hundreds of fish all at the same time.”
The whales are migrating south towards Baja California to breed this time of year.
“I’m so in my own world as I’m filming this,” said Captain Merriam. “But every time something I see on my screen happens, I can hear hundreds of people just go, ‘woah.’ And that is everything to us. That’s why we are out here day after day to have those kind of reactions and to experience it ourselves.”