Orcas attacked a baby gray whale in Monterey Bay off of the coast of California on April 17, 2018.

In the dramatic video, the filmer can be heard describing the attack.

“We’re near the end of the battle,” he says. “There’s blood in the water as you can see, and the killer whales — there’s about seven of them — are attacking a baby gray. It’s about 4 months old.”

“These killer whale attacks occur when the migrating pair take the short cut across the deep open waters of Monterey Bay,” the filmer explained in a description he submitted with the video. “If they were to follow the contours of the bay, they would have been safe in its shallow waters.”

I was taking Ohio cousins on a whale watching trip with Monterey Bay Whale Watch on Monterey Bay. Attacks by orcas, killer whales (they are really the largest dolphins) on mother/calf pairs have been knows but rarely filmed. Here we see an actual attack where the orcas attempt to separate the baby from the mom and then they drown the baby. Most of the time, as in this case, the baby loses.

These killer whale attacks occur when the migrating pair take the short cut across the deep open waters of Monterey Bay. If they were to follow the contours of the bay they would have been safe in its shallow waters.