Jared Towers, executive director of Bay Cetology, a research nonprofit based in Alert Bay, British Columbia, was on a boat in waters at the northeastern end of Vancouver Island, British Columbia, when a transient orca offered a freshly-killed harbor seal pup. “I did not have my phone out when T046C2 came over and dropped the seal,” Towers wrote in an email, “But I had time to get it when she left it there sinking before circling around to pick it up again.” He took a photo, showing the orca’s still-open, toothy mouth after just releasing the seal.
Towers says this demonstrates that killer whales are capable of generalised altruism, or kindness. It also shows that orcas can recognise sentience in others and are curious and bold enough to experiment across species, he says.
This generalised altruism makes sense in social societies where members benefit from cooperation. Killer whales are also some of the few marine predators that occasionally find themselves with excess prey. Sometimes, a pod will kill a larger whale than they can finish, for example. “You can just leave it, you can play with it or you can use it to explore relationships in your environment,” says Towers.
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Orcas make the best news headlines. Change my mind
Anything involving SeaWorld.
Fine, you did it. Party pooper.
Free orcas make the best news headlines. Change my mind
It hurts to be called a party pooper.
Didn’t mean to hurt, can I hug you?
Always!
You know shits bad when even the wild animals are like, “here, have this salmon. You look hungry.”
They’re trying to domesticate us. Clever strategy. It has potential
I enjoy the idea that we’re basically feral neighborhood cats to them.
I just tried to think how that would actually work given the orca’s inability to build fences on land/what humans would eventually evolve into given the needs of a completely different mindset. Suffice to say, I think I need to stop smoking.
Or you need to smoke more. Reach that higher plane of thinking
Now you’re thinking with portals!
Pity is so much worse than hatred.
Orcas almost never attack humans, as to be essentially anecdotal, and most of the times attributed to error. The attacks on boats have often ended in the crews bailing out and ignored by the orcas, who were clearly attacking the boats, not the humans.
There are old stories from whaling colonies in the south Atlantic (Falklands if my memory is correct) where orcas would rescue sailors who fell overboard. The sailors /whalers often fed the orcas scraps. So either kindness or taking care of the hand that feeds them.
Thanks for all the fish, but… <concerned seawolf look> Y’all need to eat somethin’, honey.
They had a screening of Free Willy and changed their minds.
