The whales have reportedly been seen by several people, despite being a rare sighting in those waters at this time of year, off the coat between the tourist towns of Newquay and Padstow.
Dom Clarke, an Ocean Scientist, saw what he describes as a mother and a calf while he was walking along the cliff near Trevose Head near Padstow. He said they then headed south towards Newquay.
He told how he came across a man with binoculars who asked him whether he knew what species the whales were.
“I thought, ‘wow, that is pretty unusual to see’, so I grabbed the binoculars,” he said. ”At the time they were heading south along the coast about 100 metres off the headland. It was pretty special.”
Killer whales are rarely seen in waters this far south. They are more often found around Iceland, Norway and Northern Scotland, but have sometimes been seen off the Atlantic coasts of Spain and Portugal.