> Or, maybe this is just a new “fad” for juvenile orcas that could go out of fashion as they grow up, Jared Towers, director of Canadian research organization Bay Cetology, tells NPR. In the 1990s, scientists observed another strange orca trend, but it has since faded away.
> "They'd kill fish and just swim around with this fish on their head," Towers tells NPR. "We just don't see that anymore.”
Imagining the behavioral / fashion trends of Orcas over time is really fascinating :D
I'm betting some very intelligent animals realized humans are very reluctant to cause them direct harm (read: very illegal to hurt an orca) and have decide to have some fun with the humans.
Tik Tok for orcas would not be a positive, but I get the feeling they are doing a "look what I did" all the same.
This is probably what you mean, but I imagine it's just a lack of negative evolutionary reinforcement of behaviours cause those behaviours to proliferate.
That being said, I'm convinced we continue to deeply underestimate the intelligence and competence of numerous species, even today when we like to talk about how ridiculously smart dolphins and whales and dogs and birds and primates etc... are.
I remember thinking, "I will be that dad who does not underestimate my kids capabilities. I won't hold them back." And my 5yo is still absolutely blowing me away with his ability to build complex redstone machines in Minecraft. I think humans are just really good at underestimating competence.
I think it's the converse: after we've hunted orcas to near extinction, that very intelligent species realized they were no longer the apex predator, and could never win against a land-based species. There are ZERO documented incidents of orcas attacking humans in the water. They've chosen a cultural taboo against hurting humans, in hopes that we would no longer see them as an enemy and stop hunting them. And it worked!
Guessing the rudder attacks are either teenage pranks or misunderstanding that boats belong to humans.
>I'm betting some very intelligent animals realized humans are very reluctant to cause them direct harm (read: very illegal to hurt an orca) and have decide to have some fun with the humans.
didn't work for that walrus Freya. You just need a few not even very bad just not very good humans, especially if they happen to be government bureaucrats. Hope there is more protection for orcas.
Yea we apparently went from the MyFish era to the FinBook era and we’re so behind we’re only now finding out.
The native peoples in the Northwest say the orcas change into people and walk among the villagers. They also say that humans that drown at sea become killer whales and when they interact with boats like this story or swim really close to shore they’re trying to communicate with their human families
"whats up its ya boi xxKingOrca200 back at it again about to rudderprank this boat sponsored by nord SeaPN you know how we do. shout out to the beluga tier supporters and the silly fishhead bro's in the pod dont forget to like subscribe and ring the diving bell"
The article mentions it. One of the most mind-blowing facts is that there has never been a recorded human death caused by an Orca.
There are many possible explanations for it, selective eaters, not tasty, knowing what they are getting themselves into.
At the same time they are curious, playful, and it seems emotional, if they have trends like breaking boats & carrying dead fish. It's a miracle such playfulness never ever accidentally killed a human.
After Sperm whales they have the largest brains in the world. Of course big sections of that is dedicated to their complicated bodily functions. But I think we are most likely severely underestimating their intelligence.
Maybe you mean in the wild? A high-profile death-by-Orca occurred at Seaworld [1] but I think this was more of an intentional revenge rather than accidental playfulness.
> but I think this was more of an intentional revenge rather than accidental playfulness.
At first blush this struck me as a silly comment, so I read the article... and boy, are you right. It really does sound like an intentional, even methodical killing. Here's the description from the wiki:
> As part of the end-of-show routine, [Dawn Brancheau] was at the edge of the pool, rubbing Tilikum's head. She was lying with her face next to Tilikum's on a slide-out, which is a platform submerged about a foot into the water. SeaWorld claims that she was pulled into the water by her ponytail. Some witnesses reported seeing Tilikum grab Brancheau by the arm or shoulder. The orca's move seems to have been very quick, pulling her underwater and drowning her. At least a dozen patrons witnessed Brancheau in the water with Tilikum. Employees used nets and threw food at Tilikum in an attempt to distract him. Moving from pool to pool in the complex, they eventually directed Tilikum to a smaller, medical pool, where it would be easier to calm him. After approximately 45 minutes, Tilikum released Brancheau's body.
I suppose I'm anthropomorphizing and making a lot of assumptions, but holding that poor woman under water for 45 minutes strikes me as making sure that she's dead--particularly since its caretakers (who, presumably, have a strong understanding of how to influence its behavior) were actively attempting to entice it to let her go. For 45 minutes.
>The autopsy report said that Brancheau died from drowning and blunt force trauma. Her spinal cord was severed, and she had sustained fractures to her jawbone, ribs, and a cervical vertebra. Her scalp was completely torn off from her head, and her left elbow and left knee had been dislocated.
No one can ever just tell the facts about this case without some kind of slant. There's nothing we know that indicates this was an act of revenge. Tilikum was much more mistreated by the orcas he lived with than he was by any human, so if there was to be an act of revenge it would've likely been on another orca.
Google says that there are about a billion sharks in the world but only 50k orcas. Meanwhile there are only about 10 humans killed by sharks a year. So zero recorded humans killed by orcas isn't that surprising. I wouldn't personally volunteer to swim with them.
Edit: granted, I didn't mention that it's typically great white, tiger and bulls that are life threatening among sharks. So it isn't really a billion versus 50k. Regardless, there aren't really that many fatalities by sharks per year.
Latest estimation is that that are only 3500 great whites with more then 300+ recorded attacks, excluding other types of sharks.
Next to that Orcas frequently interact with humans, more than sharks. For instance as this article describes, they are quite active in the tiny mediterranean sea. Which some human even swim across (60 attempts per year).
Also they live close to the surface, they need to breath every 5-15 minutes. And just as sharks they enjoy Sea Lions, which sharks often confuse with humans.
Interestingly, orcas have a particular interest in great white sharks. Apparently they enjoy shark livers, and will hunt and kill great whites just to eat the liver and leave the rest of the carcass: https://www.iflscience.com/watch-a-great-white-shark-getting...
Orcas are savage, incredibly strong, smart, and capable pack hunters. Absolute apex predator of the sea and sharks don't stand a chance.
> Google says that there are about a billion sharks in the world but only 50k orcas. Meanwhile there are only about 10 humans killed by sharks a year. So zero recorded humans killed by orcas isn't that surprising. I wouldn't personally volunteer to swim with them.
Sharks are a group of taxonomical orders. Orcas are a species.
You wouldn't want to swim with them anyway, for the same reason you wouldn't want to run with a herd of stampeding cows.
I've noticed a real hesitancy to ascribe such complex reasoning to cetaceans. But these are thoughtful animals that in one instance led the creation of a complex and astonishingly cooperative co-hunting relationship with human whalers. They clearly understand humans are able to kill baleen whales even orcas can't handle (adult humpbacks, for example). It seems obvious that they also understand the potential consequences of competing with / preying upon a highly social alpha predator.
The higher number of shark attacks may also have to do with water conditions, which could lead a shark to mistakenly interpret a human as food or competition for food:
"A large number of (shark) bites occur when water conditions are poor"
- https://saveourseas.com/worldofsharks/why-do-sharks-bite-people
Well, there haven't been many deaths that we know of. However, the behavior of the orcas seems to be a learned behavior. Obviously they're doing this for a reason. Who knows, maybe this pod of whales has developed a taste?
There are a few ways I could see this happening. Perhaps they found a lone sailor, or maybe a small boat of migrants coming from Morocco made an easy target.
There was that recent BBC nature documentary that showed hunting behaviour by Orcas in Antarctica using self created waves to knock seals off ice floes and into the water that also had a "behind the scenes" part after that disturbingly seemed to suggest that the Orcas had a go at the same technique to try to knock the camera crew off their zodiac and into the water.
It's possible that they're capable of recognising intelligence in another species, like we are, so that may just be play... Or they think you might be a seal in a human costume
Not only do they kill, they figured out if you flip a shark they'll pass out and they can nibble at leisure, that's a bit more intelligence than "idiots biting rudders" which seems to be the current theory sadly
There is at least one well-documented case of a pod of orcas understanding enough about people and boats for them to to initiate a mutually-beneficial and reciprocal understanding of how to cooperate in hunting whales.
Given this, I think it is conceivable that these orcas may have achieved some sort of understanding of fishing boats as competing with them for their food, and developed a hostility towards boats as a result.
IIRC, not all orca pods hunt whales or other marine mammals, and many are generally fish eaters. I would not be at all comfortable in a life raft or similar boat in the presence of orcas that do hunt seals or emperor penguins.
If orcas live for decades, have memories, and have language, then they're telling each other stories about us. The Southern Resident Killer Whales are down to 70+ beings. They've probably figured out by now that humans are the ones responsible for their food supply getting decimated. I suspect orcas everywhere are trying to figure out ways to communicate with us and are doing an amazing job.
They probably haven't accounted for human denial and human-centric science. These two things lead to scientists being like "Gee! I wonder why they're parading their dead babies and carrying them around? They must be grieving!"
As opposed to a slightly more realistic interpretation:
"They must be grieving and are trying to tell us 'See what you're doing to us?'"
By the way, the solution to their food supply issue is to breach the dams on the Snake River that are mostly only staying online to sustain the jobs of the people working on them. The salmon that spawns on the river saw its numbers plummet and have remained low ever since....for decades.
Yeah, looking for the simplest biological explanation, shortcirtuiting having to recognize life, is incredibly demeaning. Reminds me of the whole "babies/animals can't feel pain" thing. Sure, they act like they're hurt, but how do we know that's not just triggered responses to stimuli? FFS.
There are several subtypes. The most common are the transient, resident, and offshore orcas, but these are all located in the Pacific Northwest. (I believe there's a fourth, rarely observed one in this area, but I can't remember the name.) Several other subtypes exist, such as the rarely seen Type D pod in the Southern Ocean. If I recall correctly, the orcas attacking these boats are tuna specialists. Fish-eating orcas typically concentrate one a single or just a couple of species of fish, which explains why they're upset.
Orcas are highly intelligent, and it's my opinion that they know exactly what they're doing and are frustrated with the competition.
I think the running assumption should be that orcas are as intelligent as humans. Their brains are much larger and have more complex/dense folds than ours. They're also more socially bound than us, likely giving them a higher emotional intelligence.
Intelligence evolves in response to environmental pressures. Other than being mammalian, I doubt that orca and human intelligence can really be compared. Orcas don't have agriculture or industry. They just live naked in their environment and hunt. Their intelligence might be something like that of a pre-homo-sapien hunter tribe.
Interestingly, there's almost no documentation of orcas attacking humans in the wild: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orca_attack . While there seem to be some cases of attacking boats, wikipedia lists only a single known instance of a human being bitten by a wild orca. It's actually rather surprising, considering they are an apex predator with a highly varied diet. Though it's said most attacks by sharks are a case of mistaken identity, and with better intelligence and echolocation an orca is far less likely to make that mistake.
Randall Munroe of the New York Times wrote about this recently in a column[1] comparing orcas and sharks. He quoted a marine biologist who attributed the rarity of attacks to infrequent encounters between humans and orcas. They don't tend to hang around places where people are swimming.
In 1989 American researcher Bernd Würsig published an article about him having been attacked by a killer whale on a beach of Valdes Peninsula. A single individual, possibly as big as 9 metres (30 ft), beached towards him while he was watching sea lions about 200 metres (650 ft) from him in hope to take a photograph of a killer whale hunt. Dr Würsig ran up the beach after the animal missed him by about 1 metre. He speculated that the whale might have mistaken him for a pinniped.[19]
I wonder if somewhere someone implemented those codes in a database and didn’t know about data normalization.
I’m imagining a boolean column somewhere dedicated to tracking whether every patient has been attacked by an orca or not. It’s fun to imagine things sometimes
> Last month, five people had to be rescued after a pod of orcas attacked and sank their sailboat off the coast of Portugal. As the boat took on water, they deployed a life raft and were picked up by a nearby fishing vessel, writes Raffaella Ciccarelli for 9News.
> ...
> Conservationists urge the public not to view these incidents as malicious. "They are not attacks, they are interactions, that is, killer whales detect a foreign object that enters their lives and respond to its presence, but not in an aggressive way,” Alfredo López of Iberian Orca, a conservation group, tells Newsweek’s Robyn White.
Not that I necessarily blame the orcas here, but this framing is so bizarre and out of touch.
"Yes, they destroyed the boat and the people had to be rescued, but it's not aggressive."
When organizations use weasel words and spaghetti logic like this, they signal that they're not interested in arguing in good faith, and people start dismissing them out of hand.
> "Yes, they destroyed the boat and the people had to be rescued, but it's not aggressive."
> When organizations use weasel words and spaghetti logic like this, they signal that they're not interested in arguing in good faith
There are a few relevant questions in a scenario like this:
1. Was the attack intentional?
2. Was causing harm/destruction a goal of the attack?
3. Orcas are predators. Were they attempting to eat anyone?
I would interpret "not in an aggressive way" as drawing a line between questions (1) and (2), and that's certainly an important distinction to draw. It's also possible to draw a line between (2) and (3), which wouldn't match well with the ordinary use of the word "aggressive", but which is still important and is suggested by the context.
Dogs understand attacking property -- especially property obviously being used by a human -- and orcas are considerably smarter than dogs. I believe they've been shown to cooperate with humans in hunting before, and that without the sort of socialization dogs get and without the artificial selection for human sociability dogs have undergone.
Sure, they weren't trying to eat anyone, and I don't believe orcas basically ever actually try to kill humans...but the very fact that they don't further underlines how smart they are, so yeah they knew what they were doing.
I have to imagine there's a reason for this behavior. The researchers have some very infantile conclusions as to why: maybe they like rudders! Maybe it's just a fad! Seems a bit disingenuous given our understanding of how smart these animals are.
Alternatively, they're doing this for a specific reason. Perhaps noise pollution, food scarcity, just general annoyance with the boats, etc.
“Fads” imply sophisticated social interactions that are generally associated with near-human levels (or at least likeness) of intelligence. I interpret that conclusion as being supportive of the idea that these are incredibly intelligent animals, not the opposite.
When it comes to other mammals, there's this Human Supremacist mindset that since we can't converse with them, they are incapable of intent / complex thought / problem solving activities.
Humans have been piloting boats across the Atlantic for around 800 years (beginning with Greenland), and the great cod collapse happened on the quincentennial of Columbus's voyage. Each of your explanations has a "why now?" caveat. Fads fit in the gap, unless they've recently developed weapons.
Increasing water temp, climate change, food scarcity, environmental pollution, desperation, habitat loss, new audible or physical disturbances caused by these boats. I mean, there's probably 100 different reasons you could think of for why now.
"Fads" answer nothing aside from simply removing the need for further explanation. Why are they doing that? I don't know, they're bored! It's a fad. Great research.
Orcas enjoy pinning whales and entering the mouth to remove the tongue, even if they do not eat the rest. Perhaps rudders and boat undersides with similar shapes inspire the same play instinct.
> Or, maybe this is just a new “fad” for juvenile orcas that could go out of fashion as they grow up, Jared Towers, director of Canadian research organization Bay Cetology, tells NPR. In the 1990s, scientists observed another strange orca trend, but it has since faded away.
> "They'd kill fish and just swim around with this fish on their head," Towers tells NPR. "We just don't see that anymore.”
If I didn't know any better, it sounds like the Orcas discovered TikTok long before we did.
Edit:
It's a joke y'all. I find the trends in TikTok both hilarious and scary. Maybe Orca parents do too /s
This happened to my father’s boat a few weeks ago. He says four other boats were attacked on the same day but it was only recorded as a single incident — which he thinks is a conspiracy by the authorities so sailors aren’t scared off.
He says it is known that the problem is caused by an adult female, who has some “teenagers” who either take part or hang around observing.
His proposed solution is a 50 cal riffle to the brain of the adult female. IDK
>His proposed solution is a 50 cal riffle to the brain of the adult female. IDK
One of the most fascinating episodes of mythbusters I've ever seen was watching what happens to bullets (even up to .50 cal IIRC) when they hit water. They disintegrate within like 1m.
Disclaimer: I vehemently disagree with the idea of shooting the killer whales.
That episode they were shooting directly into a swimming pool, and I think the close-to-max velocity of the bullet caused them to disintegrate.
Or in other words, I wouldn’t assume that bullets impacting water at lower velocities would behave the same.
Fwiw, I don’t remember them using a 50 cal. The amount of energy in a 50BMG compared to even a 30 cal round is ridiculously huge, and IMO would have risked damaging the pool.
Readit News
> "They'd kill fish and just swim around with this fish on their head," Towers tells NPR. "We just don't see that anymore.”
Imagining the behavioral / fashion trends of Orcas over time is really fascinating :D
I attribute the trouble with today’s youth to an overall decline in the importance of traditional pod values in Orca society.
"Breaking rudders, really? That's so '80s ... Can't believe that's coming back."
https://old.reddit.com/r/natureismetal/comments/wwuqhh/orca_...
Edit: NSFL
Tik Tok for orcas would not be a positive, but I get the feeling they are doing a "look what I did" all the same.
That being said, I'm convinced we continue to deeply underestimate the intelligence and competence of numerous species, even today when we like to talk about how ridiculously smart dolphins and whales and dogs and birds and primates etc... are.
I remember thinking, "I will be that dad who does not underestimate my kids capabilities. I won't hold them back." And my 5yo is still absolutely blowing me away with his ability to build complex redstone machines in Minecraft. I think humans are just really good at underestimating competence.
Guessing the rudder attacks are either teenage pranks or misunderstanding that boats belong to humans.
didn't work for that walrus Freya. You just need a few not even very bad just not very good humans, especially if they happen to be government bureaucrats. Hope there is more protection for orcas.
After we’ve hunted them into endangered status.
The native peoples in the Northwest say the orcas change into people and walk among the villagers. They also say that humans that drown at sea become killer whales and when they interact with boats like this story or swim really close to shore they’re trying to communicate with their human families
I’ve always loved that mythos.
slow clap
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There are many possible explanations for it, selective eaters, not tasty, knowing what they are getting themselves into.
At the same time they are curious, playful, and it seems emotional, if they have trends like breaking boats & carrying dead fish. It's a miracle such playfulness never ever accidentally killed a human.
After Sperm whales they have the largest brains in the world. Of course big sections of that is dedicated to their complicated bodily functions. But I think we are most likely severely underestimating their intelligence.
Edit: "a recorded human death in the wild"
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dawn_Brancheau
At first blush this struck me as a silly comment, so I read the article... and boy, are you right. It really does sound like an intentional, even methodical killing. Here's the description from the wiki:
> As part of the end-of-show routine, [Dawn Brancheau] was at the edge of the pool, rubbing Tilikum's head. She was lying with her face next to Tilikum's on a slide-out, which is a platform submerged about a foot into the water. SeaWorld claims that she was pulled into the water by her ponytail. Some witnesses reported seeing Tilikum grab Brancheau by the arm or shoulder. The orca's move seems to have been very quick, pulling her underwater and drowning her. At least a dozen patrons witnessed Brancheau in the water with Tilikum. Employees used nets and threw food at Tilikum in an attempt to distract him. Moving from pool to pool in the complex, they eventually directed Tilikum to a smaller, medical pool, where it would be easier to calm him. After approximately 45 minutes, Tilikum released Brancheau's body.
I suppose I'm anthropomorphizing and making a lot of assumptions, but holding that poor woman under water for 45 minutes strikes me as making sure that she's dead--particularly since its caretakers (who, presumably, have a strong understanding of how to influence its behavior) were actively attempting to entice it to let her go. For 45 minutes.
Really wild stuff.
check out the article
Edit: granted, I didn't mention that it's typically great white, tiger and bulls that are life threatening among sharks. So it isn't really a billion versus 50k. Regardless, there aren't really that many fatalities by sharks per year.
Next to that Orcas frequently interact with humans, more than sharks. For instance as this article describes, they are quite active in the tiny mediterranean sea. Which some human even swim across (60 attempts per year).
Also they live close to the surface, they need to breath every 5-15 minutes. And just as sharks they enjoy Sea Lions, which sharks often confuse with humans.
Orcas are savage, incredibly strong, smart, and capable pack hunters. Absolute apex predator of the sea and sharks don't stand a chance.
Sharks are a group of taxonomical orders. Orcas are a species.
You wouldn't want to swim with them anyway, for the same reason you wouldn't want to run with a herd of stampeding cows.
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Seems fitting.
My ex was friends with one of them. They were biology students together at the University of Victoria.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Keltie_Byrne
I've noticed a real hesitancy to ascribe such complex reasoning to cetaceans. But these are thoughtful animals that in one instance led the creation of a complex and astonishingly cooperative co-hunting relationship with human whalers. They clearly understand humans are able to kill baleen whales even orcas can't handle (adult humpbacks, for example). It seems obvious that they also understand the potential consequences of competing with / preying upon a highly social alpha predator.
Sharks on the other hand, swim in waters people tend to frequent.
It's a numbers game.
There are a few ways I could see this happening. Perhaps they found a lone sailor, or maybe a small boat of migrants coming from Morocco made an easy target.
It wasn't until recently that humans would be numerous enough in the water to be a viable food source for an Orca.
Tweak some things about our evolution and Orcas would kill humans often, sometimes for fun.
Orcas are the Hannibal Lectors of the Sea.
The description of the video is worth reading for context.
They kill blue whales, sperm whales, and great white sharks. The notion that orcas are anything other than apex predators is just silly.
https://www.sharktrust.org/tonic-immobility
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killer_whales_of_Eden,_New_Sou...
Given this, I think it is conceivable that these orcas may have achieved some sort of understanding of fishing boats as competing with them for their food, and developed a hostility towards boats as a result.
IIRC, not all orca pods hunt whales or other marine mammals, and many are generally fish eaters. I would not be at all comfortable in a life raft or similar boat in the presence of orcas that do hunt seals or emperor penguins.
They probably haven't accounted for human denial and human-centric science. These two things lead to scientists being like "Gee! I wonder why they're parading their dead babies and carrying them around? They must be grieving!"
As opposed to a slightly more realistic interpretation:
"They must be grieving and are trying to tell us 'See what you're doing to us?'"
https://damsense.org/
Orcas are highly intelligent, and it's my opinion that they know exactly what they're doing and are frustrated with the competition.
I think the running assumption should be that orcas are as intelligent as humans. Their brains are much larger and have more complex/dense folds than ours. They're also more socially bound than us, likely giving them a higher emotional intelligence.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/15/science/sharks-killer-wha...
In 1989 American researcher Bernd Würsig published an article about him having been attacked by a killer whale on a beach of Valdes Peninsula. A single individual, possibly as big as 9 metres (30 ft), beached towards him while he was watching sea lions about 200 metres (650 ft) from him in hope to take a photograph of a killer whale hunt. Dr Würsig ran up the beach after the animal missed him by about 1 metre. He speculated that the whale might have mistaken him for a pinniped.[19]
Put a person around an Orca for long enough, and eventually, the odds are reasonable that the Orca will kill them.
I’m imagining a boolean column somewhere dedicated to tracking whether every patient has been attacked by an orca or not. It’s fun to imagine things sometimes
> ...
> Conservationists urge the public not to view these incidents as malicious. "They are not attacks, they are interactions, that is, killer whales detect a foreign object that enters their lives and respond to its presence, but not in an aggressive way,” Alfredo López of Iberian Orca, a conservation group, tells Newsweek’s Robyn White.
Not that I necessarily blame the orcas here, but this framing is so bizarre and out of touch.
"Yes, they destroyed the boat and the people had to be rescued, but it's not aggressive."
When organizations use weasel words and spaghetti logic like this, they signal that they're not interested in arguing in good faith, and people start dismissing them out of hand.
> When organizations use weasel words and spaghetti logic like this, they signal that they're not interested in arguing in good faith
There are a few relevant questions in a scenario like this:
1. Was the attack intentional?
2. Was causing harm/destruction a goal of the attack?
3. Orcas are predators. Were they attempting to eat anyone?
I would interpret "not in an aggressive way" as drawing a line between questions (1) and (2), and that's certainly an important distinction to draw. It's also possible to draw a line between (2) and (3), which wouldn't match well with the ordinary use of the word "aggressive", but which is still important and is suggested by the context.
Sure, they weren't trying to eat anyone, and I don't believe orcas basically ever actually try to kill humans...but the very fact that they don't further underlines how smart they are, so yeah they knew what they were doing.
Alternatively, they're doing this for a specific reason. Perhaps noise pollution, food scarcity, just general annoyance with the boats, etc.
Increasing water temp, climate change, food scarcity, environmental pollution, desperation, habitat loss, new audible or physical disturbances caused by these boats. I mean, there's probably 100 different reasons you could think of for why now.
"Fads" answer nothing aside from simply removing the need for further explanation. Why are they doing that? I don't know, they're bored! It's a fad. Great research.
> "They'd kill fish and just swim around with this fish on their head," Towers tells NPR. "We just don't see that anymore.”
If I didn't know any better, it sounds like the Orcas discovered TikTok long before we did.
Edit:
It's a joke y'all. I find the trends in TikTok both hilarious and scary. Maybe Orca parents do too /s
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He says it is known that the problem is caused by an adult female, who has some “teenagers” who either take part or hang around observing.
His proposed solution is a 50 cal riffle to the brain of the adult female. IDK
One of the most fascinating episodes of mythbusters I've ever seen was watching what happens to bullets (even up to .50 cal IIRC) when they hit water. They disintegrate within like 1m.
Disclaimer: I vehemently disagree with the idea of shooting the killer whales.
Or in other words, I wouldn’t assume that bullets impacting water at lower velocities would behave the same.
Fwiw, I don’t remember them using a 50 cal. The amount of energy in a 50BMG compared to even a 30 cal round is ridiculously huge, and IMO would have risked damaging the pool.
Sorry to hear about the boat, but shooting at them is not the right answer.
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I wonder if someone already tried this. Some fishermen view marine life as competition.
A couple years ago near Seattle there were I think seals washing up with bullet wounds.
Are the orcas responding to being attacked?
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