‘That’s a killer whale’: Video shows rare encounter with orca off Mass. coast

GLOUCESTER, Mass. — An orca was recently spotted swimming with a pod of dolphins off the coast of Massachusetts in a rare killer whale encounter caught on video.

Donna Piraino, of the charter Go Girl Fish, was out fishing for tuna in the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary off Gloucester this past weekend when her vessel came upon the whale.

Stellwagen Bank extends from Cape Ann to Cape Cod.

"This is why I started a fishing charter service...To show folks what we see on the water," Piraino wrote in a social media post. “Every trip is an adventure.”

Piraino shared photos and video of the close-up encounter with Boston 25 News.

“That’s a killer whale right there...All that white. That’s a killer whale right behind our boat,” Piraino can be heard saying in the video. “Oh my God.”

The Atlantic White Shark Conservancy confirmed in a Facebook post that the orca is Old Thom, a 30-foot killer whale that weighs about eight tons.

‘An orca!’: Video shows rare encounter with killer whale off Massachusetts coast Credit: Donna Piraino

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“Old Thom is more like a legend, a name you know but a figure you may wait years to see,” the Orca Conservancy wrote in an online post about the whale’s history.

Old Thom has been spotted off the Massachusetts coast in the past, as well as Nova Scotia’s Bay of Fundy.

In 2024, a video shared with Boston 25 News showed Old Thom breaching by himself off the coast of Chatham.

Orca sightings have also been documented off Cape Cod in 2022, in 2019, and 2016.

Orcas are apex predators. Even great white sharks are their prey.

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