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I've never believed that orcas have always left humans alone. I think they began leaving humans alone when commercial whaling took off and they witnessed first
by mcpackieh 3y ago
I've never believed that orcas have always left humans alone. I think they began leaving humans alone when commercial whaling took off and they witnessed first hand how dangerous humans can be to whales. Maybe that generational memory is now fading.
Yeah I know the argument that humans are too bony and taste bad, but how would they know we taste bad if they never even take a nibble to taste test us? These are very intelligent mammals, they should be curious about how we taste. Am I to believe that sharks are more inquisitive and willing to experiment with food than orcas?
- solumunus 3y agoSharks are dumb. They’re not experimenting they’re making mistakes.
- mcpackieh 3y agoSharks are much dumber than orcas but that's not saying much. They do take experimental nibbles on people, and occasionally follow through and actually eat people.
- ceejayoz 3y ago> These are very intelligent mammals, they should be curious about how we taste. Maybe they're intelligent enough to recognize our intelligence, and don't want to attack other intelligent beings?
- mcpackieh 3y agoMaybe, but they don't seem to have much pity/respect for other intelligent animals. Particularly, they devour baby whales of other species.
- thatwasunusual 3y agoSo do we, _and_ we attack our "own intelligence."
- atdrummond 3y agoWe kill plenty of our own babies and there’s relatively little outrage about this proportionally. I’m not sure that ethics and intelligence correlate nearly as well as we would like to think.
- mcpackieh 3y agoOkay but the supposition I'm responding to is that orcas are too ethical to eat humans. The capacity for humans to behave unethically isn't disputed.
- MagicMoonlight 3y agoWhy would you assume that they are better than us? We ate and/or raped everyone on land to extinction
- wouldbecouldbe 3y agoSome argue they are selective eaters and generally eat what they are thought by their pod while growing up.
- mcpackieh 3y agoThere's no doubt they teach behaviors to each other, but that goes hand-in-hand with invention and experimentation. Different pods have different diets and hunting tactics, meaning at least some of them occasionally try something new and teach the others if it works well.
- javajosh 3y agoIt may be retribution. Maybe a yacht propeller maimed or killed an important orca, an elder or a child, and now they want retribution. Or maybe it's just a fun thing to do, or a teenager right of passage thing. Or some combination. It's fun to speculate!
- fallingfrog 3y agoIn my opinion it’s likely that they are aware that eating humans would come with consequences.