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Unique killer whale pod may have acquired special skills to hunt whale sharks
- nobodyandproud 2y agoAre there any definitive reasons as to why killer whales haven’t targeted humans?
- nradov 2y agoIt would be kind of pointless. Humans aren't very nutritious. An orca would have to be really starving to resort to hunting humans instead of other prey.
- olddustytrail 2y agoI don't know. They also haven't targeted chimpanzees or gorillas. I feel there could be a deeper reason we're missing!
- kijin 2y agoDo chimps and gorillas regularly swim in seas populated by killer whales?
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- nobodyandproud 2y agoKiller whales will go after elk and deer (for instance) when the opportunity arises. Humans in the water also seem like low reward but minimal-effort.
- s1artibartfast 2y agoThey will kill as play, so I dont think that is it. It could be that we both tase bad and are uninteresting.
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- JumpCrisscross 2y agoTo be fair, we only know there are no reported orca attacks. For a report to be filed they’d have to leave witnesses ;).
- awinter-py 2y agouh they one thousand percent have did a killer whale write this
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- kleton 2y agoThey probably have ancient oral history that that's a bad idea.
- jandrewrogers 2y agoOrcas have notoriously selective taste preferences that tend toward nutrient dense fatty foods. They can eat anything and different pods will narrowly specialize in different types of prey, but it is quite apparently a choice based on regional preferences. These food preferences are passed down over generations. Not terribly unlike human cultures. Orcas are very smart. Humans, even if we met their taste profile, are not a repeatable food source they can specialize in hunting. They may also recognize that eating humans comes with unknown risks because they are pretty observant of what humans are capable of.
- krisoft 2y ago> They may also recognize that eating humans comes with unknown risks because they are pretty observant of what humans are capable of. Idk about that. We have some skills but orcas see basically none of them. From their perspective we are slow and bad swimmers who need to breath all the time. Would an orca even understand that we made and control boats/ship as opposed to that humans live on boats/ships the same way fleas live on a dog? Mind you, i’m not saying orcas are stupid. What I’m saying is that the slices of our life they can observe are not impressive, and the impressive things we do are not readily observable to them.
- hyperthesis 2y agoConsider whaling, by killer apes.
- moffkalast 2y agoWhales probably don't know what apes are, I mean how many live near an ocean? But we are mammals like them and they'd probably realize the similarity given that we need air. Maybe they'd consider us some kind of killer land whale?
- marcosdumay 2y agoThey know what humans are, and certainly have some way of calling us. I'd imagine they don't consider us any similar to them. But they know those indestructible whale-like surface gliders are shocking full of us, and that we can kill a whale with way more easiness than them.
- threeseed 2y agoDuring the many shark attacks it's known that they don't find us appealing whether it's the taste or some nutritional aspect. Because after the initial bite they never finish people off even after the person has died. Could well be that orcas are similar.
- dotancohen 2y agoMaybe they prefer seafood. Seriously - food from the sea is different from land animals, not only in taste and texture. We may just seem too foreign to their palette, like snails are for us (pas toi).
- NeinMiez 2y ago[dead]
- alas44 2y agoJe me suis senti visé
- dotancohen 2y agoJ'ai essaye d'etre discrete.
- CRConrad 2y agoDidn't help, même moi l'ai compris.
- HKH2 2y ago*palate
- dotancohen 2y agoThank you. It's too late to edit, but I've learned.
- 2y ago
- reliablereason 2y agoMaybe it is an instinct, an instinct in the same way we humans tend to not eat rotten meat or maggots in wounds. But humans have not been around for so long so I am not sure how deep such an instinct might be. Maybe it is a preference for "seafood". Or they understand that we are dangerous to have as enemies. Either through recent observation or through some type of communication that has been passed down through the generations. It is not that long ago since we stoped killing killer whales; less than a hundred years, some of them might have been alive and still remember. There are records of untrained killer whales hunting together with humans; so some of them certainly understand what we are capable of. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Tom_(orca) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Tom_(orca)
- Hilift 2y agoSome people just smell bad and taste bad.
- ashoeafoot 2y agoThey have stories about what almost happened to the wales.
- CRConrad 2y agoGot invaded by the sassenach[1]? --- [1]: Yeah, I know, but I don't know.
- setopt 2y agoIt seems there are some reported attacks, but for some reason it’s quite rare (and in many cases we probably deserved it). https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orca_attacks https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orca_attacks
- bigbacaloa 2y ago[dead]
- gcanyon 2y agoI'll say what I always say when seeing things like this: for humans, "dying of natural causes" generally means dying peacefully in your sleep, or quickly of a heart attack or stroke, while for most animals, "dying of natural causes" means getting eaten alive, just praying that it will be over soon. I'll take being human.
- jareklupinski 2y agoit took us a while to get here maybe whales will be the next animals to start coming ashore? or maybe some cool underwater evolution
- bravetraveler 2y agoAlternatively, friendly humans will undermine the pillars of your life - gutting you in a different way. I often prefer the honesty of wild animals.
- gcanyon 2y agoThat second video with the snorkelers sidling up to the orcas while they're attacking/feeding -- I know orcas have no record of attacking humans, but that's just a no^100 for me. Who's to say they won't get a little rambunctious in their glee at feeding and use one of the swimmers as a chew toy? Or decide that we might taste funny, but would make an interesting palette cleanser? In some parts of Africa, lions don't usually target humans, but you don't see researchers walking up to lions taking out a zebra like that.
- hnbear 2y agoEven within humans it’s socially unacceptable to walk up to people you don’t know you are eating and strike up conversation, eg in a restaurant. Disturbing eating is a pretty broad no-no across the animal kingdom. Then again, if the orca wanted you dead, could easily grab you from below in its mouth and pull you down. You’d be dead in 2 mins without much fuss. They’re smart enough to know how to target the right bits. They target baby whales in similar ways, holding them down to drown them. Would be a lot more targeted and cleaner than a shark attack. If they just held a human down might not leave much evidence it was an orca at all.
- echelon 2y agoOrca are known to eat moose and caribou. If an orca was hungry and a human presented an opportunity, it might not end well for the human. Just because we have no evidence of humans being eaten by orca does not mean we're off the menu. It's like the pop-sci adage that "sharks don't eat humans". It's a wildlife conservation meme that is just not true. While sharks evolved to predate certain classes of prey, they're also opportunistic. Even though our nutrient density and anatomical profile might not match a typical meal, sharks will still eat us. Tiger sharks are notorious for this.
- hackeraccount 2y agoWatch some of https://www.youtube.com/@TheMalibuArtist https://www.youtube.com/@TheMalibuArtist I mean these are Great Whites for the most part not Tiger sharks but ... man, I honestly believe that ever single Great White attack was a mistake on the sharks part. And even for non-humans - there's a great video in there of 4 or 5 sharks all circling a dead or dying seal. One by one they all get in close and then one by one they all take a pass. The seal later washed up on the beach not touched by any shark. The guy behind the video speculated that the seal was poisoned by eating fish infected with a red-tide type bacteria - the sharks just won't touch seal like that.