[HN Gopher] Orcas are breaking rudders off boats in Europe
___________________________________________________________________
Orcas are breaking rudders off boats in Europe
Author : pseudolus
Score : 279 points
Date : 2022-08-25 13:58 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.smithsonianmag.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.smithsonianmag.com)
| oldstrangers wrote:
| 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.
| CodeWriter23 wrote:
| 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.
| scythe wrote:
| 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.
| oldstrangers wrote:
| "why now?"
|
| 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.
| mirror_neuron wrote:
| "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.
| oldstrangers wrote:
| I'm just saying "fads" implies there's no generally specific
| reason for their behavior outside of the learned social
| behavior.
| shironandon wrote:
| If orca associate humans with taking their food, killing whales
| (eg: Faroe Islands), and polluting their habitat it's not
| surprising for them to instinctively react against this threat.
|
| Monkeys groom one another to remove lice.
|
| Humans are the lice.
| numtel wrote:
| Exactly, I don't believe one bit that they're "attracted to the
| pressure differential of the prop." I've swam in the ocean and
| boats are extremely noisy and annoying underwater. The Orcas
| fully understand that the boats are linked to the changes in
| the ocean.
|
| To the downvote: I'm sure you've heard a drone buzzing above
| your head and getting nervous. A boat propeller does the same
| thing.
| hansendc wrote:
| There's at least one extremely well documented example of a
| killer whale that played extensively with boats:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luna_(orca)
|
| Granted, this was a lonely little fellow. But, he knew
| perfectly well what he was doing and repeatedly approached
| boats, despite the noise. He died after colliding with a
| tugboat prop.
| trynumber9 wrote:
| Orca will kill other whales simply to eat the tongue. The idea
| they would be offended by Faroese hunting and killing other
| species of whales... seems unlikely. Competition seems like
| better motivation.
| trynumber9 wrote:
| >But this question has now been answered after three
| instances of packs of orcas attacking blue whales off the
| coast of Western Australia were recorded by marine scientists
| from Cetrec WA (Cetacean Research). It includes details of
| how the killer whales swam inside the mouth of the enormous
| whales to eat their nutritionally rich tongue just before
| they died.
|
| https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/mms.12906
| 6510 wrote:
| We are so obsessed with finding other intelligent life in the
| universe. We should make an effort towards communicating with
| intelligent life on earth.
| cronix wrote:
| Ok now, who gave the Orcas access to tiktok?
| kodah wrote:
| > 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
| werdnapk wrote:
| fullstop wrote:
| conductr wrote:
| EB-Barrington wrote:
| More info here from Portuguese news source:
|
| https://www.theportugalnews.com/news/2022-07-31/5-rescued-af...
|
| Discussion amongst "cruisers", common terminology for people who
| live on boats:
|
| https://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/f2/orcas-sink-yacht-off...
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| > 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
| Lopez 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.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > "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.
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| 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.
| protomyth wrote:
| Do remember to use the proper ICD-10 code for any injuries
| related to an orca which is W56.21XA Bitten by orca, initial
| encounter
| https://www.icd10data.com/ICD10CM/Codes/V00-Y99/W50-W64/W56-...
| https://www.icd10data.com/ICD10CM/Codes/V00-Y99/W50-W64/W56-...
| willhinsa wrote:
| 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
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| They are smart enough to learn. Inevitably they'll learn
| something pointless! Seems so human.
| [deleted]
| phendrenad2 wrote:
| We need a full investigation. Jail time for the Orcas involved.
| Maybe public pillory and encourage other Orcas to throw fruit at
| them.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| You'd think the ongoing genocide of ocean life would be enough
| mrcartmeneses wrote:
| 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
| mulmen wrote:
| > His proposed solution is a 50 cal riffle to the brain of the
| adult female.
|
| 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?
| hedora wrote:
| There are apparently only about 39 of these orcas left.
|
| Sorry to hear about the boat, but shooting at them is not the
| right answer.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| wiz21c wrote:
| If only the sailor could have an open discussion with the
| Orca's, they could have some mutual agreement...
| trasz wrote:
| No need to - sailors like this one are plenty, in fact in
| many places there's overpopulation.
| notch656a wrote:
| May not have to wait so long. A failed rudder deep in
| international waters can easily kill someone. And a
| broken rudder in a busy shipping channel can even easier
| kill someone.
|
| An attack on someone's rudder while offshore is 100% an
| attack on their life, and arguably justifies lethal self
| defense.
| lm28469 wrote:
| Wiping out species getting aggressive because we
| destroyed their habitat through "self defense" is a funny
| thought
|
| Soon enough everything will reach equilibrium again, I
| doubt shooting orcas will put us on a better path
| azekai wrote:
| Yikes. If a wild animal wandered by and damaged your
| source of livelihood, I doubt you would espouse a similar
| view.
| [deleted]
| sirmoveon wrote:
| Lets overfish the oceans so they have nothing to eat and lets
| pollute the oceans so they suffocate to death. That will teach
| 'em
| witcH wrote:
| Let's pollute the oceans until they suffocate US to death!
| That'll teach em!
| wing-_-nuts wrote:
| >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.
| LgWoodenBadger wrote:
| 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.
| dddddaviddddd wrote:
| Link to the episode: https://youtu.be/v1uaLWAZXfk
| mistrial9 wrote:
| your father is going to extinct an intelligent species due to
| some damage to his boat - yeah, makes sense
| NullPrefix wrote:
| tiahura wrote:
| Sailboats or fishing boats?
| pvaldes wrote:
| Tuna fish migrant populations plummeted to only a 13% of its
| former numbers. Mediterranean seals vanished from Spain some
| decades ago also.
|
| So orcas are trying to get the attention from humans, because
| they know that humans have tuna. And they do strange things
| because they also know that humans trow dead fishes discarded in
| nets to the sea.
| httpz wrote:
| Must be a new TikTok challenge for Orcas
| mannykannot wrote:
| 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.
|
| 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.
| bmitc wrote:
| 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.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| 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.
| roywiggins wrote:
| "Man has always assumed that he is more intelligent than
| dolphins because he has achieved so much-- the wheel, New
| York, wars and so on-- while all the dolphins had ever done
| was muck about in the water having a good time. But,
| conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were
| far more intelligent than man-- for precisely the same
| reasons."
|
| (Douglas Adams, _So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish_ )
| bmitc wrote:
| You are conflating intelligence with technology. Orcas live
| in the water and do not have hands. It is impossible for
| them to develop writing systems or agriculture due to their
| environment. If we put a human in water, assuming a human
| could survive in open water, we'd quickly realize the human
| is powerless to develop these things as well.
|
| The modern day human brain is essentially identical to the
| earliest hunter-gatherer humans. Those groups did not have
| writing systems, industry, agriculture, etc., and yet their
| intelligence remains equal to ours. It is my suspicion,
| based upon my reading of orca behavior and biology, that
| such is the case with orcas. Even modern-day hunter-
| gatherer societies do not have writing systems or
| agriculture.
|
| On a related note, I would even argue that our modern
| technology exposes the limits of human intelligence,
| particularly that of social and emotional intelligence.
|
| Orcas appear to have quite high social and emotional
| intelligence in addition to their more raw intelligence of
| problem solving, teaching, and language.
|
| The biology is rather clear. Their brains are very complex,
| even more so than ours when it comes to folds. The areas of
| their brains relating to social and emotional processes are
| bigger, relatively speaking, than the corresponding areas
| in human brains.
|
| It is tempting to rate their intelligence lower because
| they don't have tractors or rockets, but I think this is
| mistaken. Nearly every piece of research shows that they're
| more intelligent and complex than we previously thought.
| otabdeveloper4 wrote:
| > Orcas don't have agriculture or industry.
|
| Ants have agriculture and industry. Ants are the only other
| species (besides humans) that are capable of civilization.
|
| Perhaps intelligence is not as important a factor as we
| think. :)
| outworlder wrote:
| > Orcas don't have agriculture or industry. > They just
| live naked in their environment and hunt.
|
| That was also true of Homo Sapiens for quite a while. We
| have the same brains for thousands of years, which is
| adaptable enough for both hunger-gathering, as well as
| rocket science.
|
| Orcas don't have hands and live underwater. That may put a
| damper on their industry.
| crawfordcomeaux wrote:
| 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?'"
| crawfordcomeaux wrote:
| 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.
|
| https://damsense.org/
| bencollier49 wrote:
| That casts the "wearing a dead fish" thing mentioned
| elsewhere in a darker hue.
| sdwr wrote:
| 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.
| Phrenzy wrote:
| There has never been a case of a known orca attack on a human
| in the wild. They are only known to attack when we confine
| them.
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| From the wikipedia article cited above...
|
| In 1989 American researcher Bernd Wursig 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 Wursig 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]
| outworlder wrote:
| > Dr Wursig ran up the beach after the animal missed him by
| about 1 metre.
|
| So he wasn't actually attacked?
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| i guess we'd have to read the linked article from that
| bibliography to see what he said.
|
| I tried finding it, but could not, but it's in German and
| the title says he was attacked (for who knows what
| definition).
| standy17817 wrote:
| Doubt it's a matter of confinement, and more of continued
| exposure to Orcas.
|
| Put a person around an Orca for long enough, and eventually,
| the odds are reasonable that the Orca will kill them.
| simonh wrote:
| Then again if an Orca swallowed a human in the water, there's
| would be much left in the way of evidence.
| hansendc wrote:
| They actually leave lots of evidence. A transient eating a
| seal is messy business and there are lots of seal bits and
| chunks left over. Eva Saulitis describes the aftermath in
| several cases in her book
| (https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/219235/into-
| great-s...). IIRC, fishing the evidence out of the water is
| one of the primary ways they study killer whale diets.
| openasocket wrote:
| 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.
| whoopdedo wrote:
| 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.
|
| [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/15/science/sharks-killer-
| wha...
| jprd wrote:
| Seeing "Randall Munroe of the New York Times" and not, "The
| Internet's own, Randall Munroe, of xkcd.com fame" was weird
| and wonderful all at once :D
| PerilousD wrote:
| The Orca version of Cow Tipping? Geez kids these days.
| tzs wrote:
| I wonder if something about the rudders themselves has changed?
|
| For example maybe the makers of paints or sealants used on wooden
| rudders changed formulations due to pandemic supply chain issues
| or for environmental or regulatory reasons, and now they include
| something that smells like food to the Orcas.
| bmitc wrote:
| Orcas are not that dumb, and the orcas in this area specialize
| in tuna. They don't eat other things, and they aren't going to
| suddenly mistakenly identify a rudder as something to eat.
| acd wrote:
| Issue is that its "free" as in zero cost for fishing boats to
| fish all the fish in the ocean. So fishing has over fished the
| fish in the oceans. Classic tragedy of the commons of a resource
| fish which has no price for the extractor.
|
| Orcas has no food so they knock out fishing boats.
|
| Evolution?
|
| Tragedy of the commons:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons
| zahma wrote:
| I agree that it's textbook tragedy of the commons. It might
| appear that orcas are trying to outcompete with fishing boats,
| but this sounds like personification or an anthropomorphism of
| whales.
|
| I figured it along the lines of diminished habitat leading to
| attacks on a perceived invader, which just so happens to be far
| worse than any natural predator. It might also take additional
| experimentation/observation to see if some orcas are
| predisposed to aggressive behavior when perpetually hungry, but
| this seems to me quite a natural impulse to starvation. In any
| case, it will lead to evolutionary adaptation ... or
| extinction.
| phendrenad2 wrote:
| I don't think we're very close to fishing all of the fish out
| of the ocean.
| mellavora wrote:
| Now I wonder what that view could be based on?
|
| even a quick glance at data shows massive reductions in fish
| stocks, see other post.
|
| or basically any research study
|
| https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1046/j.1467-2979..
| ..
|
| https://www.researchgate.net/publication/266684781_A_century.
| ..
|
| https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S027277141.
| ..
|
| https://news.mongabay.com/2020/09/hawaiian-reefs-lost-
| almost...
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| doesn't need to be all of them, just the ones the Orcas
| prefer
| rexpop wrote:
| I don't know. It looks like Atlantic Cod aren't bouncing
| back[0], and neither are alewife, rainbow smelt, bloater and
| others in the Georgian Bay[1]. Meanwhile, apparently, Pacific
| Sardine have collapsed from 1.8M to 0.2M in the last 20
| years[3]. These data paint a grim picture.
|
| 0. https://i.pinimg.com/originals/7e/f7/c3/7ef7c3244b3e4fd1f2
| 24...
|
| 1. https://www.stateofthebay.ca/wp-
| content/uploads/2018/05/prey...
|
| 3. https://usa.oceana.org/wp-
| content/uploads/sites/4/593/sardin...
| immibis wrote:
| If you aren't being wilfully ignorant, then you will be
| unpleasantly surprised when you find out.
| pelagicAustral wrote:
| I guess Priti Patel finally managed to weaponize orcas.
| walnutclosefarm wrote:
| > 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.
|
| Outhouse tipping for adolescent Orcas?
|
| (OK, so maybe you have to have grown up in a rural area, 50 years
| ago to know that tipping over the small outdoor toilets called
| outhouses was a favorite low key vandalism for bored adolescent
| males, but ...)
| jiggywiggy wrote:
| 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.
|
| Edit: "a recorded human death in the wild"
| [deleted]
| latchkey wrote:
| More accurately, no wild Orca's have killed humans. 4 people
| have died from captive Orca's.
|
| Seems fitting.
| btilly wrote:
| 3 of them killed by the same orca.
|
| 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
| ilyagr wrote:
| Here's a video of wild orcas cautiously playing with a human:
| https://youtu.be/bTIcQMwYC1o.
|
| The description of the video is worth reading for context.
| tantalor wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orca_attack
| Tiktaalik wrote:
| 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.
| richthegeek wrote:
| 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.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dawn_Brancheau
| soneca wrote:
| Yep, the article has that "in the wild" clarification
| marcusverus wrote:
| > 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.
|
| Really wild stuff.
| lm28469 wrote:
| > that poor woman
|
| The poor orca who's been abducted at 2 and kept in a
| swimming pool for decades for fun and profit you mean ?
| bmitc wrote:
| Honestly, it's a bit surprising that people find this
| surprising. Orcas are air-breathing mammals, and conscious
| breathers at that. They kill other mammals, namely whales,
| often by drowning them intentionally. They know what
| drowning is.
|
| The other is that these are massive animals placed in water
| prisons, constantly exposed to the sun and concrete and fed
| fish they wouldn't eat in the wild. It would be like
| putting a human in a small 3'x3' box with the top exposed
| to the sun and fed dog food and then being surprised that
| they're on edge.
|
| That orca definitely killed the trainer on purpose or did
| it in a way such that it didn't care whether she lived or
| died and was releasing frustration. An orca could bite a
| human in half in the same way that a human can bite through
| jello, which shows that the orca was displaying frustration
| and exasperation. Orcas have committed suicide while in
| captivity, by intentionally and repeatedly ramming their
| heads into the concrete walls to cause brain hemorrhages or
| starving themselves.
|
| To be frank, it is mindblowing to me that people view these
| incidences as examples of orca intelligence rather than
| exhibitions of human cruelty and unintelligence.
| fsckboy wrote:
| A different wikipedia page (about another of the people
| Tilikum killed) describes the incident differently. I have
| not investigated all the citations to explain the
| difference:
|
| _Tilikum became an infamous whale after attacking and
| killing his trainer, forty-year-old SeaWorld staff member
| Dawn Brancheau. Tilikum grabbed her arm, scalped the woman,
| fractured her jaw and killed her by blunt force trauma, the
| result of which was a contentious and controversial legal
| case over the safety of working with orca whales and the
| ethics of keeping live whales and other marine mammals in
| captivity._
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Keltie_Byrne
| amelius wrote:
| Could it have been an act of (frustrated) affection
| instead?
| yieldcrv wrote:
| the article does specify in the wild, and that it doesn't
| hold true regarding captivity
|
| check out the article
| RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote:
| >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.
| bmitc wrote:
| Tilikum weighed over 12,000 pounds. Orcas have bite forces
| apparently estimated to be around to be at least 20,000 psi
| (13 times that of a jaguar), can launch themselves tens of
| feet out of the water, can ram great whites and whales to
| disorient or knock them out, and more. It's honestly
| surprising the injuries weren't worse and showcases the
| orca was frustrated.
| xwdv wrote:
| In the wild most humans do not fuck around with Orcas long
| enough to find out. I'm fairly certain an Orca would eventually
| kill a human for fun.
| april_22 wrote:
| Contrary to sharks, Orca's actually don't have the ability to
| smell https://www.treehugger.com/surprising-facts-about-
| orcas-4864...
| 1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote:
| Aside: In the Links text-only browser, the HTML on
| www.treehugger.com breaks the a tags so that the href URLs do
| not work.
| spanktheuser wrote:
| > knowing what they are getting themselves into
|
| 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.
| aprdm wrote:
| How would they know it's not tasty if they never tasted it ?
| the_gipsy wrote:
| Inferrence by smell
| havblue wrote:
| 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.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > 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.
| stupendousyappi wrote:
| Orcas are almost certainly several different species as
| well, but they remain officially classified as one until
| scientists agree on how to divide them up.
| jiggywiggy wrote:
| 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.
| [deleted]
| luma wrote:
| 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.
| atwood22 wrote:
| 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.
| JustSomeNobody wrote:
| Not enough people tend to swim in the waters they thrive in.
| And the ones that do are experienced enough not to push things.
|
| Sharks on the other hand, swim in waters people tend to
| frequent.
|
| It's a numbers game.
| robotkdick wrote:
| 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
| bigbacaloa wrote:
| Very few people are stupid enough to swim with orcas.
|
| They kill blue whales, sperm whales, and great white sharks.
| The notion that orcas are anything other than apex predators is
| just silly.
| moffkalast wrote:
| Because when Orcas kill humans they leave no evidence and no
| witnesses. They're professionals after all.
| standy17817 wrote:
| Humans first made their way into the oceans relatively
| recently, often in a boat, and extremely late in the Orca's
| biological evolution.
|
| 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.
| burlesona wrote:
| > 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
| gibolt wrote:
| Maybe they finally saw Finding Nemo?
| 9192631770_Hz wrote:
| Or maybe got around to reading Douglas Adams. "Hey, you just
| _give_ dolphins fish? What about us?!"
| protomyth wrote:
| 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.
| ProjectArcturis wrote:
| 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.
| Supermancho wrote:
| > There are ZERO documented incidents of orcas attacking
| humans in the water.
|
| Minor correction: Not in the wild.
|
| In captivity, there have been some:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orca_attack
| [deleted]
| unity1001 wrote:
| Cetaceans have been recorded to have been non-aggressive,
| even helpful towards humans throughout history. That's why
| we have religious mythologies and regional/national
| mythologies in which cetaceans are told to save humans or
| they are treated as deities or spirit figures to appeal to.
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| 300 years ago, if a fisherman got eaten by an orca, would
| that have been recorded as "eaten by an orca" or "eaten
| by a fish/sea monster"? It wasn't until the mid 18th
| century that cetaceans were asserted to not be fish, it
| took another century or more for this perspective to
| permeate popular culture.
| luqtas wrote:
| i bet these teenagers attacking boats were hurt by a sail
| once... or some of them were and taught others (orca attack
| in Portugal region are not a phenomena exclusively to the
| article publication year) . orcas have different behavior
| patterns on different groups roaming the ocean
| JackFr wrote:
| > There are ZERO documented incidents of orcas attacking
| humans in the water.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Keltie_Byrne
| Waterluvian wrote:
| 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.
| stinkytaco wrote:
| Our very definition of intelligence is part of the issue.
| There's no question that animals exceed our knowledge in
| specific domains, a bird who can fly must be vastly more
| knowledgeable about variable wind conditions than we are.
| There's a great scene in Lev Grossman's _The Magicians_
| where they speak to a talking bear, but all the bear wants
| to talk about is caves, and area in which his knowledge is
| so complete that the humans cannot really even talk to him.
| But our definition of intelligence is narrowed to domains
| which we live in. That tends to be a wider than most
| animals, but it 's hardly complete.
| celrod wrote:
| Reminds of the Geifer grizzly. It raided human dwellings
| for food, signing its death warrant. It wore a radio
| collar, so it seems like it shouldn't have been a problem
| to track down. Yet, it evaded hunters for over a year,
| while still raiding houses for food, without ever being
| seen. It learned it could cross into Canada for safety
| when the pressure from the hunters tracking it got to be
| too much, and then return and invade more houses.
|
| Eventually, it was shot and killed by a random hunter in
| Canada who had no idea who that bear was. The bear didn't
| know Canadians could also be dangerous, otherwise it
| probably wouldn't have let anyone see it there either...
|
| I think a lot of animals are probably very good at what
| they've evolved to do. Bears are great at tracking and
| surviving being tracked (probably more typically by
| bigger bears); reading about it felt like getting a
| glimpse into another animal's domain and being totally
| outmatched.
| webmobdev wrote:
| I used to be arrogant about this in my teens and think
| that people who aren't good at maths and science have a
| lower IQ. Till one day I learnt about the different types
| of intelligence - linguistic, logical, geospatial,
| social, musical, empathetic etc. - that really made me
| rethink how I look at people, and how flawed the whole IQ
| thing is. When we talk about someone having a "gift" or a
| knack for something, we don't realise we are appreciating
| the intelligence of that person in that area.
| agentwiggles wrote:
| I have gotten into fishing this summer and _damn_ do
| those pro/YouTube dudes know a lot about fishing. They
| study bass behavior and do all kinds of experimentation
| with tackle and lures and the time of day and every
| conceivable variable that could affect the bite.
|
| When I was getting into weightlifting, which I had always
| dismissed as a pursuit for dumb bro types, I was
| similarly impressed with the knowledge out there about
| nutrition, anatomy, the way that muscles tear and repair
| and grow, etc.
|
| I think it's an all too common "nerd social fallacy" to
| assume that people who don't have that "traditional"
| scientific/math intelligence aren't smart, but as I've
| gotten older it seems to me that, on average, most humans
| are pretty damn smart about one thing or another.
| [deleted]
| tialaramex wrote:
| In Lem's "Golem XIV" Golem (a machine built to help plan
| World War III) explains to the humans that its
| intelligence isn't just greater than theirs along some
| singular dimension, like it understands way more about
| high energy physics or jazz or ethics than they do, but
| is instead categorically greater - and worse that it is
| definitely categorically impossible for humans to achieve
| such intelligence.
|
| The humans _really_ don 't like that and Lem's story
| struggles to really sell it because of course Lem was
| human, so it's hard to play the role of "Machine which is
| just categorically more intelligent than my whole
| species" effectively.
|
| One of the clever tricks in Vinge's "Tatja Grimm's World"
| is that Tatja is way more intelligent than everybody else
| on her planet, yet because of _why_ she 's more
| intelligent than everybody else Vinge doesn't need to
| somehow imagine being far smarter than he is.
| camjohnson26 wrote:
| A good analogy is looking at how chess grandmasters talk
| about playing against computers, especially early on when
| it wasn't known whether the best computers would ever be
| able to beat the best humans. They say it's like playing
| a super intelligence.
|
| Interestingly, I believe the engine + grandmaster
| combination can still defeat the best engines.
| genera1 wrote:
| Kasparov also believes this to be true, but the last
| example I can recall of top level player teaming up with
| a computer was in 2014, when Nakamura played exhibition
| match with engine against Stockfish and lost 1.5/0.5,
| since then computers only got better. Maybe someone
| dedicated to playing computers could perform better, but
| I doubt it, since anti-computer chess haven't really been
| a thing outside of bullet and maybe blitz for years, now
| that computers search way deeper and prune better.
| JackFr wrote:
| In Philosophical Investigations Wittgenstein famously
| said that "if a lion could speak, we could not understand
| him".
| ethbr0 wrote:
| > _but all the bear wants to talk about is caves, and
| area in which his knowledge is so complete that the
| humans cannot really even talk to him_
|
| I talk to people like that at work often.
|
| Do you think they might actually be bears?
| vixen99 wrote:
| As with spiders' k. domains it seems. More limited than I
| thought. My garden orb weaver found a dried leaf as large
| as herself in her huge web and proceeded to truss it up
| as nicely as she could before belatedly realizing that
| the operation was not going to be to her advantage.
| 7thaccount wrote:
| What an excellent show (although very weird and crazy
| too). The books showed what to me is one of the more
| interesting ways for an author to come up with a
| systematic system of magic. It isn't just saying a spell
| or anything like that. In the book (spoilers), only the
| most intelligent people can begin to take all the
| variables into account in doing a spell (hand signs,
| words, positions of the planetary bodies, temperature,
| humidity, constellations, phase of the moon, mood of the
| caster, and a ton of other things are all factored in and
| tables are cross-referenced. The author did a better job
| of explaining it.
|
| In relation to your above comment I felt they did a good
| job throughout the series showing the difficulties in
| communicating amongst lowly people and entities and
| creatures that are higher up in the pecking order.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| This is way too fast of a timescale for some selective
| effect to be the cause.
| mig39 wrote:
| Instead of evolution, some sort of epigenics or
| something?
| Waterluvian wrote:
| Yeah that's very true. Perhaps I don't mean "evolution"
| in a classical sense but rather: animals probe the world,
| and behaviours that aren't discouraged somehow are more
| likely to be replicated among the community.
| currency wrote:
| That's plenty of time for selection pressures to modify a
| culture. Culture--shared knowledge--is communicated much
| more quickly than genetic changes.
| trasz wrote:
| >are very reluctant to cause them direct harm
|
| After we've hunted them into endangered status.
| trhway wrote:
| >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.
| belter wrote:
| So you are saying the Orcas are running their own YouTube
| channel, and they are doing so humans upload videos, and get
| the views up? :-)
| lelandfe wrote:
| "Jeeze, Bill. Are you still wearing a dead fish? That's so
| 1993"
| dwringer wrote:
| Definitely a Far Side cartoon or two in all of this.
| rapind wrote:
| It's just the "Rudder Challenge". Y'all need to keep up with
| tiktok.
| belter wrote:
| "Our delivery Yacht had a serious interaction with a large pod
| of Orcas" - https://youtu.be/iEpvQKxz5JU
| greenpeas wrote:
| great narration; quite a terrifying situation, TBH
| nomel wrote:
| It looks like there's a, possibly short lived, market for
| bitter tasting rudder paint.
| zwirbl wrote:
| Astonishing, thanks for sharing!
| dfcab wrote:
| Indeed!
| tclancy wrote:
| Probably a TikTok thing.
| matthewmcg wrote:
| Evening local news story "A DANGEROUS new teen whale trend,
| next after this break..."
| redler wrote:
| This sounds like an old Far Side cartoon.
| giaour wrote:
| Calves today are just the worst, amirite? Why can't they just
| play "terrorize then eat the seal pup" like we did in my day?
|
| I attribute the trouble with today's youth to an overall
| decline in the importance of traditional pod values in Orca
| society.
| asveikau wrote:
| People have probably not been watching Orcas closely enough
| for long enough time to see how cyclical the fads are.
|
| "Breaking rudders, really? That's so '80s ... Can't believe
| that's coming back."
| quakeguy wrote:
| Ripping whales' tongues off! The worst, I tell you!!
|
| https://old.reddit.com/r/natureismetal/comments/wwuqhh/orca_.
| ..
|
| Edit: NSFL
| jwdunne wrote:
| Let's hope they don't start eating tide pods.
| dukeofdoom wrote:
| who ever is corrupting the young orcas, needs to drink
| hemlock
| nimbius wrote:
| "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"
| birracerveza wrote:
| >SeaPN
|
| _slow clap_
| bavell wrote:
| _chef 's kiss_
| karatepizza wrote:
| pwdisswordfish9 wrote:
| Surprised at no mention of NFTs.
| pavlov wrote:
| Non Fungible Tuna.
|
| When a high-status orca eats a really special tuna, then
| another lower-status orca can pay to virtually "own" the
| memory of the eaten tuna.
| marci wrote:
| And then, Andy Whalol came around and took seashell media
| by storm by spamming GIFs of his version of NFTs (No
| Fungicide Tuna, tuna can with organic tomato sauce).
| sexy_panda wrote:
| Means that big boss will eat it anyway
| zehaeva wrote:
| I can head this in my head.
| happytiger wrote:
| 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
|
| I've always loved that mythos.
| koala_man wrote:
| Orca memes
| mhh__ wrote:
| Cow tools
| bilsbie wrote:
| I saw a documentary about a young fish trying something like
| this.
| adolph wrote:
| _Pica is the eating or craving of things that are not food. It
| can be a disorder in itself or a sign of other cultural or
| medical phenomena. The ingested or craved substance may be
| biological, natural or manmade. The term was drawn directly from
| the medieval Latin word for magpie, a bird subject to much
| folklore regarding its opportunistic feeding behaviors._
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pica_(disorder)
| bitwize wrote:
| "A trend among juveniles"? Now imagining "The Rudder Challenge"
| spreading across orca TikTok.
| skocznymroczny wrote:
| "Rudder prank on unsuspecting boats! you won't believe what
| happened next!"
| mark_l_watson wrote:
| In 1975, I had a bad experience with an orca about 29 miles
| offshore of the California coast. My sailboat was small, just 20'
| boole1854 wrote:
| Do say more.
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