One whale watcher says the newcomers to Washington's waters are a bit more sassy than the local population of orcas. File Photo by Shutterstock/qingqing.

SEATTLE, Dec. 1 (UPI) -- The coastal waters of the Pacific Northwest are welcoming an influx of tourists -- not the type with cameras strapped around their necks and fanny packs around their waists, but the sharp-toothed, cold-water loving marine mammal kind.

Exotic orcas are flooding into the Strait of Juan de Fuca by the dozens and scientists aren't sure why.


Exotic orcas, sometimes called outer-coastal orcas, are a subgroup that typically sticks to the waters of the continental shelf off the coast of California. The subgroup is part of a larger West Coast population known as transient orcas. Almost all killer whales migrate to some extent,but transients (as their name implies) are most prone to long-distance travel -- following prey and favorable water temperatures up and down the coast.

Though scientists haven't had enough time to study the recent influx, it appears some combination of those two driving factors (temperature and food) has attracted the out-of-town visitors. Still, biologists are momentarily befuddled.

"Frankly, we don't know a lot about the movement of these whales on the outer coast," Brad Hanson, a wildlife biologist for the Northwest Fisheries Science Center, told The Seattle Times.

One local whale watcher says he's already spotted five groups exotic orcas this autumn, more than he's seen total in his nearly two decades of touring Washington's waters. Mark Malleson, a veteran guide with Victoria-based Prince of Whales Whale Watching, told the Times