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Historically orcas usually didn't mess with boats or even assisted whalers in hunts. I wonder if this was a cultural memory of the orcas about sailors (whalers

by ginko 2y ago

Historically orcas usually didn't mess with boats or even assisted whalers in hunts. I wonder if this was a cultural memory of the orcas about sailors (whalers at least) retaliating quite fiercely in the few instances they were being messed with and that's fading away now.

nkozyra 2y ago
Maybe. They're very smart animals, though, I don't think it would take much positive reinforcement to become engrained behavior.
roughly 2y ago
Historically it was the opposite: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/killer-whales-work-with-humans https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/killer-whales-work-wit... - the whalers worked with the orcas and gave them some of the catch. Cooperation, not competition.
- klyrs 2y ago
  Perhaps they're just mad we stopped paying our tolls
  - roughly 2y ago
    tit-for-tat cooperation strategies are pretty well-known in the animal world. Hell, even mycelium hold back minerals from trees that stiff them on sugars.