Orcas may be trying to learn that ‘who are we’ when they share hunting with humans, the study shows
Jeed towers were in their research ship on two different occasions when the killer whales from the coast of Vancouver Island were watching when Orkas dropped his victim directly to him and his colleagues.
The encounters they have described as “rare” and described as amazement-pradyadayakas have led a new study published in the magazine of comparative psychology, which details the experiences of researchers with the killer whale, which clearly share their food with humans.
“We have a long history of interacting with other animals, trying to feed them and get their reactions. But for any wild hunter it is very rare that we do the same.”
“This is actually the first report of any kind in literature documenting these cases for the killer whale.”
The towers say that when he appeared an onca, he and his colleagues were hovering, closed the second encounter in 2018. They stopped and saw it floating around before appearing and released a freshly killed seal next to the boat.
The towers said, “She could have dropped it with a stern or bow, but he dropped it properly, next to us,” the Towers said.
“We just saw this thing sitting there drowning in water for about 10 or 15 seconds, until he came from a little circle and came back and picked it up.”
It followed an encounter in 2015 in which an Occa opened its mouth and released a dead ancient murylet, a type of seabard, directly next to the boat of the towers. He says that Orca left his prey for a few moments before taking it again.
“This left us a little strange,” said the towers, “he was worldwide with a killer whale between thousands of encounters, adding two cases.
“I started thinking a little differently about these animals at that point.”
The towers and his colleagues started an investigation, which led to a published study on Monday, in which 34 examples were examined in which the killers worldwide appeared to give their prey to whales humans.
Researchers only wanted to investigate cases where the whale “was going out of his way to connect with people on the contrary,” said the towers, who is located in the Alert Bay, BC from the North Eastern Vancouver Island.
To include in the study, the whale had to contact humans directly. Researchers considered cases where people did not contact the whale over 50 meters in five minutes before the conversation.
In one of all the situations, the study stated that the whale was awaited to reply to people before fixing or leaving its prey.
The towers said, “These were not mistakes. They were not like a killer whale.
The study does not rule out any selfish motivation behind behavior. But the towers say that they think it is “philanthropic” and “supporting-social” to share a clear hunt.
Food sharing between relatives and other orcas is fundamental for whales, and in an attempt to provide humans with prey, they say that it can be an example of whales who are practicing a cultural behavior or searching for humans’ ability to respond.
This week, Occa Whale has been seen from the coast of Cape Breton. Lobster fisherman Burney Lamy told CBC that this is the first time he has ever seen a pod of killer whale in the area.
“I think these cases can be a socio-social representation of really conscious learning, where these whales are really going out of their way to try and understand … who we are and we can interact with them in their environment,” said the towers.
Given the social, cooperative nature of the killer whale as advanced cognitive abilities and a species, the study states that researchers “assumed that for all these explanations, and the results of such behavior are possible.”
The study was a transient orkas from the coast of East tropical Pacific population, BC and Alaska from the coast of California with Whale New Zealand, Central Argentina and Norway. The study stated that all “offering” programs took place between 2004 and 2024.
Orcass usually use prey to engage in sports, and the study accepts that 38 percent of hunting-sharing cases were investigated which included the game. Whale may be using its prey to play with humans, it says.
But for several reasons, the study states that researchers believe that the game was a driving factor behind the clear offerings.
Elisan McGilives recalled the moment when she and her family saw a killer whale floating backwards from the coastline in West Vancouver.
Whale often plays the game after meeting their nutritional needs, but in cases of hunting with humans, Prasad was in almost half encounters.
In the study, the orkas recovered the hunting after most humans accepted and often moved to share it with other whales. In most cases, the interaction did not exceed 30 seconds. In contrast, the study states that whales are usually engaged in playing more frequent.
The study concludes that the whale has the ability and motivation to share food for several reasons that may include intellectual or emotional benefits.
“Humans can include opportunities to practice cultural behavior, detect or play by learning the killer whale together by presenting items to humans and so to know, manipulate or develop with us,” said this.
The towers say they hope that the study gives people an opportunity to see the killer whale in a different light, promotes curiosity about their ability to think “and perhaps there are some convergence development of intelligence with us.”
The towers stated that the researchers strongly discouraged people from accepting any victim offered by orkas, due to the ability to harm each other for both species, the towers said.
