[imagesource:youtube/montereybaywhalewatch]

Incredible drone footage shows a pod of around 30 killer whales swarm and attack two adult gray whales off the coast of California.

Filmed above Monterey Bay by Monterey Bay Whale Watch last week, Field & Stream called it one of the most stunning large-scale predation events on the planet.

The hunt apparently took five hours and the killer whales were not successful in their predation in the end.

Orcas don’t typically hunt and feed on adult gray whales – although they have been known to chow on their babies – so this is a pretty rare occurrence, one that got Monterey Bay Whale Watch’s photographer Evan Brodsky hot under the collar:

“My heart was beating out of my chest,” Brodsky later told the San Francisco Chronicle. “I felt like I was filming something from National Geographic.”

Have a look at the condensed footage:

The video was posted on Facebook where it amassed a ton of views, with Brodsky commenting:

“Usually killer whales will hunt gray whale calves as they head up to their northern feeding areas with their moms. But these were not calves: they were huge adult gray whales! The battered gray whales eventually made it to shallow water, and the orcas broke off,” he wrote.

“In over 30 years of documenting killer whales encounters by @californiakillerwhaleproject, this is the FIRST time that such an attack has been documented on adult gray whales in Monterey Bay!!!”

The North Pacific gray whales did a good job of huddling together in an effort to ward off their killer whale attackers, even though the orcas rammed the giant whales repeatedly, even making patches of bloodied water rise to the surface.

In another video, posted by WVUE Fox 8, Brodsky made it clear how rare this situation is:

Killer whales are clearly extending their menu options, going from ripping out the livers of South African sharks with surgical precision and driving those populations down to the extent that they now feel the need to feed on gray whales.

Although killer whales are actually members of the dolphin family and not considered true whales, they’re the ocean’s apex predators.

They’re also clearly the psychopaths of the big blue.

[source:fieldandstream]