Orcas Hunt Whale Shark in Baja: Our Once in a Lifetime Mobula Ray Expedition Story

Kelsey Williamson
Dec 8, 2025
7 min read

Updated: Dec 22, 2025

It was our last day on our last Mobula Ray & Megafauna trip in Baja, California. The kind of day where you think the ocean has already shown you everything she’s got and then she proves you wrong.

We started the morning heading toward the sea lion colony at La Reina, playing in the blue with the sea lions before setting out to find mobula rays for a final goodbye. That was the plan.

We found only three rays, but a few of our guests asked if they could jump in one more time.

“Of course,” we said.

So Ashley, Vanessa, and Paige jumped in to spend a last moment with the mobulas while the rest of us hung back on the boat.

On the boat, a message came in. Orcas had been spotted, south of us, about an hour away.

We sat there for maybe thirty seconds pretending to “debate,” but let’s be real: the decision was already made. We called the girls back to the boat, told everyone we had a lead on something that might be worth checking, and headed outh.

A Routine Mobula Ray Expedition Turns Into a Baja Wildlife Event

One hour later, we arrived to only about five boats, practically empty for Baja, where an orca call can pull ten or more boats in no time.

Then suddenly, we saw them. Black dorsal fins slicing the surface. The energy on the boat changed, the energy that comes from pure, electric adrenaline.

Another boat came close by and told us the orcas were relaxed, moving slowly. Our guide Katy was watching their behavior and quietly said, “They look like they’re hunting.” Which, for us, meant there was a chance of getting in the water safely without disturbing them.

The captain set up our position. We were already sitting on the edge of the panga, heart racing, when he yelled:“Go!”

We slipped in and had the most unreal pass, five orcas, swimming beneath us in the bluest water you can imagine. It felt like a dream sequence.

*You can see our guide Katy swimming alongside the orcas on the other side

A Shadow in the Blue: The Moment the Whale Shark Appeared

Then came the second drop.

The captain said “Go!” again, but for whatever reason, I was the only one actually ready. I dropped immediately and started swimming toward the orcas. Off in the distance, something huge and white hovered vertically in the water column, not an orca. Not anything I recognized at first.

And then the orcas turned toward it.

They started pushing it down.

That’s when it hit me, it was a whale shark.

I swam full speed to Katy and gasped, “They’re hunting a whale shark!” (A behavior rarely documented in Baja’s marine ecosystem.)

Everything happened fast. We got everyone on the boat. Told the captain. He repositioned us and shouted: “Swim to the whale shark!”

So we did. Katy, myself, and our entire group swam like our lives depended on it, following the pod across the blue. At one point, an orca kept swimming ahead, but when we looked down, we saw the whale shark 15–20 meters below us… with another orca pinning it.

I was completely out of breath, but Katy somehow had enough left in her lungs to freedive down. I stayed at the surface, trying to recover, when suddenly the whole pod surged upward.

Five orcas brought the whale shark, flipped upside down into tonic immobility, right to the surface in front of us.

Three orcas began head-butting and body-slamming it from different angles like it was weightless. The whale shark was still alive.

Then they all surfaced to breathe together.

And in a flash, they dragged the shark back down to about 20 meters. One orca launched itself with the fastest acceleration I’ve ever seen in my life, slammed into the shark so hard that we heard the impact from the surface.

The whale shark spiraled into the abyss.

We all lifted our heads out of the water and stared at each other in absolute disbelief. I’m pretty sure I said “holy shit” at least twenty times. Everyone was screaming and laughing and crying all at once. I’m crying even writing this, it was the most wild, once in a lifetime experience any of us could’ve imagined.

That’s the thing about the ocean: she saves her most unbelievable stories for the people willing to show up, again and again, without expectation.

Within minutes, we realized we weren’t just witnessing something rare. We were inside a moment that science hadn’t fully documented yet, a pod of orcas hunting a whale shark.

And at the time, only four such attacks had ever been recorded in history.

*Screenshots of the attack we witnessed taken by Kelsey Williamson What we didn’t fully grasp in that moment, floating speechless in the blue, was just how historically significant this encounter was.

This wasn’t just rare. It wasn’t just wild. It was a behavior so scarcely documented that the scientific community had barely begun to understand it.

How Our Baja Orca Encounter Became Published Marine Science

This rare wildlife encounter in Baja California became scientifically significant… In the months after our encounter, a team of researchers began piecing together the first formal documentation of orcas preying on whale sharks. And one of the lead voices in that effort was someone who had been right there beside us in the water:

Katy Ayres, shark scientist, expedition guide, and absolute force of nature.

Katy wasn’t just observing this through a scientific lens; she was living it, freediving into the chaos with us, identifying behavioral cues in real time, and instantly understanding the magnitude of what we were seeing.

When it came time to write the groundbreaking paper in Frontiers in Marine Science, Katy became an author, contributing her expertise, analysis, and firsthand experience from the encounter.

And because our footage captured a sequence of behaviors the scientific community had almost no visual record of, I (Kelsey Williamson) provided screenshots from my video. Those images became part of the published research, and I was included as a co-author.

So yes, this moment wasn’t just something we experienced. It became something we helped document for science.

Together with Katy and the research team, the encounter we witnessed became part of a scientific breakthrough describing:

Orcas flipping whale sharks upside down to induce tonic immobility
Coordinated blunt-force strikes, exactly the head-butts and body slams we saw
Strategic pod behavior that appears to be spreading culturally
A rapid emergence of this predation pattern specifically in Baja

What we lived in real time is now part of the scientific record.

*A video clip right after they slammed the whale shark and just before they take it back down

The World Took Notice

Once the paper was released, major global outlets began covering this “newly documented” behavior

And many more, these outlets highlighted the significance of witnessing orcas hunting a whale shark in Baja. All analyzing the same behaviors we had watched from only a few meters away, flipping, pinning, coordinated impacts, and that unbelievable high-speed strike that echoed through the water.

Reading those articles was surreal because this wasn’t some distant discovery in a faraway ecosystem.

It was our day. Our moment. Our footage. Our guide. Our team. Our voices added to the science.

And it all began with a turn of events that started swimming with sea lions and looking for mobula rays into what felt like one of the most chaotic, unbelievable, heart-pounding days on the ocean any of us had ever lived through.

For those who want to dive deeper into the research, you can read the full scientific paper here: Frontiers in Marine Science:Orca Predation on Whale Sharks https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/marine-science/articles/10.3389/fmars.2024.1448254/full

*On the next drops, the orcas cruised by with parts of the whale shark still in their mouths.

Each of us walked away changed that day, shaken, humbled, buzzing, and in absolute awe. There’s something powerful about hearing how a single moment lands in different hearts. Together, their words help paint the full picture of just how surreal, emotional, and mind-bending this experience truly was. Voices From the Water That Day

Everyone on that boat lived a slightly different version of the same unbelievable moment. We all saw it from our own angles, some from the surface, some from right above the whale shark, some with adrenaline shaking through their hands, some with tears in their masks.

So instead of telling only my side of the story, I wanted to share the voices of the people who were right there with us, floating in the blue, watching the ocean rewrite everything we thought we knew.

Here are a few reflections from our guests who experienced the encounter alongside us: Paige Taylor: "Of all the days I’ve spent on the water, this day was the most memorable and surprising. As we jumped in the water hoping to see just a glimpse of the orcas, I looked down was so shocked to see the spots of a whale shark! In the next few moments, the orcas swam up to start their hunt, and I could not believe what I was witnessing. To see either of these species by themselves is mesmerizing, but to see them in a predation event is something that was never even on my list as a possibility. I will never forget the shock as we processed what we were watching. It felt like such a gift from the ocean to allow us to witness how wild truly nature can be. It makes you feel so connected to the world and so small at the same time. Thank you to the animals who gave us this crazy day and allowed us to be a part of their story!"

*The groups excitement after getting back on the boat and slowly realizing what we had just witnessed

Experience Baja’s Marine Life for Yourself

We left the water that day changed, quieter, humbled, vibrating with the kind of awe that never really leaves you. That’s what these trips are about. Not chasing moments like this… but giving the ocean space to surprise us.

If reading this made your heart race even a little, imagine experiencing Baja’s wildlife for yourself from mobula ray aggregations to the unpredictable magic of megafauna encounters.

Our Mobula Ray & Megafauna trips for next year are now open, and spaces always fill up.

🐋 Explore upcoming trips here

FAQ: Orcas, Whale Sharks & Baja Wildlife Encounters

Do orcas hunt whale sharks in Baja California?

Yes, but it’s extremely rare. The encounter we witnessed helped contribute visual evidence to new scientific research documenting this behavior.

Is it safe to swim with orcas in Baja?

We only enter the water when orca behavior is calm, predictable, and assessed by experienced guides. On this day, conditions allowed for safe observation.