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(47,953 posts) Tue Oct 7, 2014, 08:40 PM Oct 2014

Sperm whales spotted off California coast in rare sighting

LAGUNA BEACH – Whale experts on Monday raced to get to boats to follow socializing groups of sperm whales – a sight never before seen off the coast of Orange County.

“Nobody’s even heard of this here,” said Alisa Schulman-Janiger, a marine biologist and director of the ACS/LA Gray Whale Census and Behavior Project. “I’ve been counting whales and been on the water for 35 years. I've never seen a large group like this ever.”

The first pods were spotted about a few miles off Laguna’s Main Beach. More than 50 mothers and juveniles were rolling and playing with dolphins. They were blowing and spy hopping from the water.

These whales normally don’t hang out around Orange County. A single sperm whale named "Double Scoop" was spotted off the coast of Newport Beach on March 11, 1984. He was spotted with another male sperm whale off and on until 1990. In December 2010, a baby sperm whale that was separated from its mother was spotted by a fisherman about a mile off the coast of San Clemente.