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Killer whale Old Thom spotted again in Bay of Fundy

Orca spotted in Bay of Fundy

A killer whale named Old Thom has been spotted in the Bay of Fundy for the second time in two weeks.

The sighting on Saturday was captured on video by Nick Hawkins aboard a Quoddy Link Marine whale watching excursion out of St. Andrews.

Danielle Dion, who was a naturalist aboard the boat, said they had seen a whale blow in the area and were waiting for it to resurface.

"It was a humpback and we were stopping to wait for him to come up again and out of the corner of my eye I saw this six-foot dorsal fin come out of the water," said Dion.

"I knew immediately that was not a humpback. It was Old Thom."

Dion said the orca can be identified as Old Thom by its dorsal fin.

"You can easily tell its him by the shape of his dorsal fin. He has a nice little nick out of the back of the fin."

Dion said sightings of Old Thom in the Bay of Fundy have been recorded in 2008, 2010, 2012 and in 2014.

The same whale was spotted by a whale watching boat out of Grand Manan on Sept. 26.

The most recent sighting took place about 27 nautical miles out of St. Andrews, east of Clark's Ground in the open Bay of Fundy, said Dion.

"It's incredibly unusual," she said.

"But it's pretty much assumed that the North Atlantic population of killer whales are generalists, which means they'll take advantage of both fish and mammals.

"There's lots of food for him to eat in the Bay of Fundy."

Dion has been working for Quoddy Link Marine for 13 years and this was her first sighting of an orca in the wild.

"It's incredibly emotional. It's something I will never, ever forget," she said.