I'm not sure if this qualifies as strange, but it certainly was memorable. I was fishing for salmon fishing off the Queen Charlotte Islands in BC, and seeing Killer Whales and Humpback whales were not uncommon. On one outing, I spotted a humpback whale surfacing about 250 yards in front of us and when I looked to my left, I saw a pod of five Killer Whales about 50 yards off the port side of the boat. The Killer whales looked like they were headed towards the humpback whale so we got as close as we dared (about 75-80 yards away) and sut off the motor to watch. Sure enough, the Killer Whales attacked the humpback. They circled her and kept swimming around her sort of like Indians circling a wagon train in the old western movies. Every few seconds one of the killer whales would swoop and nip her fluke or her pectoral fin which she would pull out of the water and slap it back down, all the while blowing a high pitched whistling sound out her blow hole. This lasted about 20 minutes and then the Killer Whales just swam off leaving her uninjured. I suspect that they were just testing to see if she was injured or sick to make an easy meal. When she was healthy and strong, they must not have felt she was worth the effort.

Jim Smith