Killer whales trapped in ice shelf in Japan escape to freedom

Drone footage shared by public broadcaster NHK shows at least 10 orcas trying to gasp for air and struggling in small gap between ice flows

A pod of at least 10 killer whales, including three to four calves, that were trapped by sea ice off Japan’s northern island of Hokkaido have safely escaped, officials believe.

On Wednesday morning, officials from the island’s eastern town of Rausu said: “We believe they were able to escape safely.”

Drone footage shared by public broadcaster NHK earlier showed at least 10 orcas trying to gasp for air and struggling in a small gap between ice flows.

Officials from Rausu on the Shiretoko peninsula told the outlet that they were waiting for the ice to break up naturally.

“We have no choice but to wait for the ice to break up and for them to escape that way,” a Rausu official was quoted as saying by the broadcaster.

On Wednesday, however, Rausu official Masataka Shirayanagi said that they believe the killer whales were able to free themselves from the drift ice as gaps between them grew.

The pod was first spotted by a fisherman who called the Rausu Coast Guard Station on Tuesday.

Seiichiro Tsuchiya, a marine life expert with Wildlife Pro LLC who filmed the trapped pod with a drone, was reportedly doing research in the area on the local sea lion population.

“I saw about 13 killer whales with their heads sticking out of a hole in the ice,” he said.

“They seemed to be struggling to breathe, and it looked like they included three or four calves.”

Every winter, the eastern coast of Hokkaido, the northernmost of Japan’s main islands, becomes covered with drift ice. However, in recent years, due to climate change, there has been a noticeable reduction in the amount of ice due to the warming of sea temperatures.

Officials noted that this week the movement of ice sheets has been minimal.

This was not the first time a pod of killer whales was trapped in Rausu. In 2005, nine orcas died after becoming entrapped in the drift ice.