Real or fake? Orca photos off Outer Banks spark questions.
The North Carolina Division of Marine Fisheries is investigating the authenticity of several photos purporting to show orcas off the coast of Cape Hatteras last week.
Austinville resident Amiee Dean and her family were fishing June 12 off the Point at Cape Hatteras National Seashore when she said they spotted what appeared to be killer whales about 30 yards offshore.
Dean said her 10-year-old son, the only family member not fishing, had his phone and she shouted to him “Please tell me you got some pics!” as the sea creatures leaped out of the water.
Dean shared the photos with state officials and the Red Drum Tackle Shop in Buxton, which posted them on Facebook. They have since removed the post.
Stormy Petrel II, a charter boat company operating out of Hatteras, captured and posted video, also on June 12, of what it called “false killer whales” off the coast of Cape Hatteras. The company has not returned requests for comment.
After Dean’s photos went viral, the internet went to work and found a Korean Powerade commercial from 2006 showing leaping orcas that look similar to the pictures Dean said her son took. Dean could not immediately be reached for comment Tuesday.
Orcas are found in oceans worldwide and have made rare appearances off the North Carolina coast. A pod was last spotted and photographed near Oregon Inlet in March 2011.
“IT departments are working to verify the authenticity of two photos that were shared with me and with the NC Aquarium,” Victoria Thayer, a conservation biologist and marine mammal stranding coordinator with Marine Fisheries, said in an email. “Orcas have been photographed off the N.C. coast. N.C. waters have an impressive diversity of marine mammals.”
Orcas are “seldom seen on boat trips, even well offshore,” in North Carolina and there has been only one report of a killer whale stranding in the state, in 1926, according to the North Carolina State Parks website.
