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Orcas go to Oregon Coast seashore in Newport
A pair of orcas got here near shore at Cobble Beach in Newport on April 25. Tidewater resident Jo Leach caught the marine mammals on video.
Jo Leach and her husband made a game-time choice once they heard a pair of orcas was swimming simply off the shore on the Oregon coast close to Newport on April 25.
The retired couple lives greater than 25 miles away in Tidewater, a 30-minute drive. Would the killer whales even be there by the point they made the trek? A good friend assured her in a textual content group chat that the marine mammals would not be leaving anytime quickly.
“Okay, I’m just going to go,” Leach, 69, recalls thinking. “I’m gonna chance it.”
Leach made it to Cobble Beach in time to seize footage of the orcas swimming close to the shore, a seal observing them from a distance, and uploaded it to Facebook. Her movies have thus far earned practically 200,000 views.
It’s the primary time Leach has caught such close-up footage of an orca on video. And she credit the Oregon Whale Sightings group on Facebook for fostering the tightly knit digital group that retains its members within the loop every time they catch sight of a fin or flipper breaking the ocean floor.
“It’s type of neat to see them from the shore since you often see ‘em farther out on the water,” Leach said.
The Leaches weren’t the only beach-goers looking for the orcas that day. The beaches were besieged by whale-watchers and other visitors when the couple initially arrived in Newport.
“There were tons of people there and absolutely no parking,” Leach said.
When they finally found a spot at Yaquina Head Lighthouse, Leach and her husband didn’t know how to get down to the beach. That’s when the couple ran into a park volunteer who guided them to a stairway that led to the shore.
“Once I got there, it was pretty evident why it’s referred to as Cobble Beach,” Leach mentioned with fun. “It was actually laborious to stroll on.”
Leach and her husband saw the orcas’ dorsal fins in the water and she started recording.
Chasing after whale sightings is always a gamble, she said. Leach and her husband used to catch sight of gray whales spouting off in the distance, but the promise of those kinds of views doesn’t stir her the way it used to. Orca sightings, on the other hand? That’s the jackpot.
“If I can see ‘em in the river, in the bay, that’s exciting. I’ll turn out for that,” Leach said.
Eder Campuzano is the local news editor for the Statesman Journal. He can can be reached at [email protected]. Find him on Bluesky at @ederc.bsky.social or Threads @ederc.
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