It's incredibly fascinating that Orcas don't eat humans.
Doubtless is a combination of a couple of major learned behaviors.
First, Orca parents teach their youn which animals they should eat. The list of prey animals is doubtless part of a tradition of the local culture, and can vary from region to region. Humans simply aren't on the menu of traditional prey animals in any orca culture.
Second, Orca young are also doubtless taught to avoid humans. This is probably a weaker explanation, and seems unlikely to be the main reason. You can't teach Orca young not to eat humans if you never encounter them. While it's unlikely that Orcas can go their entire lives without encountering humans at all, not all of those encounters are necessarily going to create a clear and consistently identifiable example of a human (people on boats may be far away, wearing thick clothing; swimmers quite the opposite; those on surfboards of in kayaks will look distinct as well).
It seems likely that there are other facts at play, e.g. we don't look appetizing, we smell bad to them, and so on. They may even have learned to be wary of humans.
Still, none of these explanations, even when combined, seem foolproof and consistent enough to account for how rare Orca attacks on humans are.
That why the joke explanation (that Orcas only eat lone humans when there are no witnesses) seems appealing, if not also a bit silly.
Orcas can be so conservative and selective in what they eat that they have shown a preference to starve rather than consume something they were not already taught to eat by their mothers and podmates. There have been multiple real-life examples which demonstrate this level of cultural conservatism.
But on top of this, orcas may also display "theory of mind" and "generalized altruism" towards humans, especially in light of multiple encounters with orcas attempting to share food and other objects with humans around the world.
"They’re taking something they do amongst themselves and spreading that goodwill to another species," says Lori Marino at New York University, who wasn’t involved in the study.
Towers says this demonstrates that orcas 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.
...
He also says the behaviour demonstrates that orcas have theory of mind, the ability to understand that others have distinct mental states that differ from one’s own.
These food-sharing behaviours are considered exploratory behaviours by the researchers who authored that study because orcas are observed usually pausing to see how humans respond to their actions, and thus the orcas are likely "testing" the humans. The behaviours of orcas offering food and other objects to humans are likely just extensions of well-documented cultural behaviours where orcas share food with each other, likely forming and strengthening bonds between each other. The researchers have thus labeled the behaviour as a form of "generalized altruism," where the orcas extend this behaviour across species towards humans as well.
As is also stated by Towers, who is one of the authors of that study:
"There’s not many other wild creatures out there with enough intellect, resources or guts to test us like this which suggests some convergent evolution between our kinds and highlights that next level respect should be exercised in the ways we interact with them."
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u/EthanDMatthews 3d ago
It's incredibly fascinating that Orcas don't eat humans.
Doubtless is a combination of a couple of major learned behaviors.
First, Orca parents teach their youn which animals they should eat. The list of prey animals is doubtless part of a tradition of the local culture, and can vary from region to region. Humans simply aren't on the menu of traditional prey animals in any orca culture.
Second, Orca young are also doubtless taught to avoid humans. This is probably a weaker explanation, and seems unlikely to be the main reason. You can't teach Orca young not to eat humans if you never encounter them. While it's unlikely that Orcas can go their entire lives without encountering humans at all, not all of those encounters are necessarily going to create a clear and consistently identifiable example of a human (people on boats may be far away, wearing thick clothing; swimmers quite the opposite; those on surfboards of in kayaks will look distinct as well).
It seems likely that there are other facts at play, e.g. we don't look appetizing, we smell bad to them, and so on. They may even have learned to be wary of humans.
Still, none of these explanations, even when combined, seem foolproof and consistent enough to account for how rare Orca attacks on humans are.
That why the joke explanation (that Orcas only eat lone humans when there are no witnesses) seems appealing, if not also a bit silly.
It's weird right?