“It’s very, very complex and exciting, and we're just starting to scratch the surface,” McInnes said. Once believed to be part of the larger West Coast population, these outer coast killer whales have a vocal dialect and culture distinct from their transient cousins, and they specialize in hunting big game, such as gray whale calves and massive elephant seals or sea lions as well as other smaller cetaceans in the open sea and around the Monterey Submarine Canyon, McInnes said. West Coast residents are familiar with the well-known and iconic chinook salmon-eating endangered southern resident killer whales in the Salish Sea, and the more numerous Bigg’s killer whales, or transient orcas, that ply the shallower waters of B.C.’s coast and inlets in search of seals and other sea mammals.īut growing evidence indicates there’s a population of orcas - outer coast killer whales - that are a distinct subgroup of transient whales, and which frequent the ocean depths along the continental shelf off the coast of central California and Oregon, said lead author Josh McInnes, a scientist with the Marine Mammal Research Unit at the University of British Columbia. There’s a mysterious killer whale that prowls deeper waters and specializes in hunting big game, research by a B.C.