Dead Orca Swallows Six Otters Whole, Last One Gets Stuck Leading to Its Demise

An orca washed ashore in the Bearing Sea in 2020. The dead marine life had six sea otters fully intact inside its stomach, with the seventh stuck in its throat, which may have led to its demise.

Orca Eats Six Otters Whole

An orca's carcass was found off the shore of the Russian Commander Islands in the Bering Sea in 2020. Investigating scientists surprisingly found whole otters inside their stomachs with a combined weight of 258 pounds, according to a new study.

There were also 256 pieces of cephalopod beak in the orca's stomach. It's possible that the otter that got stuck in the whale's esophagus and between its oral cavity killed it.

Joseph K. Gaydos, a wildlife veterinarian and the science director of the SeaDoc Society at the University of California, Davis, was convinced that the killer whale died due to the seventh otter that got stuck in its esophagus. There are several killer whale populations in the NE Pacific Ocean (AK, BC, WA, OR, and CA), and each can be one of three different ecotypes of killer whales. They have diverse diets (some are fish eaters specializing in salmon, some are mammal eaters, and some are fish eaters specializing in sharks). Since this whale belonged to the mammal-eating ecotype, it grew up eating seals, sea lions, other whales, and perhaps even otters.

Although it is uncommon, killer whales have been known to consume sea otters, and it has even been proposed that this may have contributed to the species' decrease in Alaska in the 1990s, he continued. Gaydos suggested that the adult female orca was hunting alone or that the otters were just little enough for her to devour whole, except for the final one, which might have caused her demise.

The specific cause of the orca's death is unknown, but the size and mass of its final meal may have contributed. Sea otters like the ones found within the orca may grow up to five feet long, making them an extraordinarily enormous and unappealing feast.

The last otter may have been the final straw for this case if there was a whole otter stuck in the esophagus and there was necrosis or tissue death in that place, indicating the otter was stuck there, Gaydos added.

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What Do Orcas Eat?

Killer whales or orcas are apex predators - since they are at the top of their food chain. Like other odontocetes (toothed whales), they eat fish and squid but will also hunt seals, seabirds, and even whale species that are much larger than themselves.

Within their populations, orcas often follow a specific diet and are rarely observed consuming sea otters, instead favoring seals, whales, sharks, sea lions, and salmon. According to Alex Ford, a biology lecturer at the University of Portsmouth in the UK, many communities have various diets. Some consume fish, while others consume marine creatures like seals. Those who consume marine animals often have higher pollution levels in their bodies.

Another peculiar facet of the recent discovery is that orcas tend to break portions off their prey rather than swallow it whole. Per Gaydos, killer whales don't chew their meal; instead, they typically rip or thrash it into pieces before ingesting it.