||| FROM THE GUARDIAN |||
Concern is growing for the welfare of a pod of killer whales that appear to have become trapped in drift ice off the coast of Hokkaido in northern Japan.
Footage aired by the public broadcaster NHK on Tuesday showed at least 10 orcas poking out of a small gap in the surface of the water about 1 km off the coast of Rausu on the Shiretoko peninsula – a Unesco world heritage site famed for its abundant wildlife.
The town said the thick ice had made it impossible for the coast guard, which had been alerted by a fisher, to attempt to free the mammals. “We have no choice but to wait for the ice to break up and for them to escape that way,” a Rausu official told NHK.
Seiichiro Tsuchiya, a marine life expert who filmed the stricken animals using a drone, told the broadcaster he noticed the pod while conducting research into the local sea lion population
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News report this morning says the orcas are not there anymore. They apparently got out of the ice jam on their own.