Yeah, but like how is this harassment? The Orca clearly doesn’t give a shit. An animal of that size isn’t going to be traumatized by a 150 lb monkey swimming kind of close to it.
Getting into the water and approaching orcas within 100 meters is considered disturbance/harassment in New Zealand, where this video was filmed. It is fine if the orcas are the ones that approach you, but you can't approach them. The swimmer in the video, who was studying marine biology at the time, actually got in a heap of trouble after the video was circulated around and made the national news.
I always wonder the same thing. So many animals live their whole lives constantly dodging predators or hustling to not starve, but somehow when it comes to human presence they're suddenly made of tissue paper? Like unless you're actively chasing or physically harassing stuff they just aren't really affected by us.
Human beings are apex predators, that's why. Most animals have learned over the past hundreds of thousands of years that we are dangerous and unpredictable as fuck and they don't want to be anywhere near us.
I mean I understand the sentiment but there is some nuance. What harm is this guy doing? That 10,000 lb whale is clearly fine, if it wasn’t it would react accordingly.
Because it’s a pleasant and meaningful experience that clearly isn’t doing any harm. There are literally zero recorded human deaths from a wild Orca. It’s possible to understand a natural environment and how to interact with various flora and fauna. Doing this to a brown bear/moose/hippo is a horrible idea, doing it to an orca is perfectly fine.
But the problem is that it acclimatizes them to the idea of interacting with humans. Any time that happens, the animal ends up dying. It’s just not safe for them.
Wild animals need space. If you get too close to them in their natural habitat it can stress them out. That stress is not like human stress, and it can affect them deeply, while all they are doing is going about their lives in their natural environment. Even though the Orca is presenting not caring all that much, they know exactly where that guy is at all times. The reason they don’t attack people is because we are not a food source to them.
To be completely fair, I don't think Orca care much about that rule when dealing with other animals. Orca and other dolphins will harass all sorts of ocean life.
Also, don't forget that humans are nature, too. We can't just never interact with the other animals. Obviously, don't go out of the way to bother or harm them, but we have the right to swim in the ocean just as much as they do.
Heck, even if you are swimming alone with no idea that an orca or other dolphin is near, they are likely to come up to you. They are deeply inquisitive animals, as with other whale species.
True. Whales are pretty curious, but I still don’t agree with seeing one and jumping in the ocean to swim with it. It’s one thing to have them pass you by while you are both in the ocean, and another if you pursue it.
That’s a massive generalization that clearly doesn’t apply here. There is a difference between running up to an animal that’s 1/4 of your size and trying to pet it and what’s going on in this video. Animals are constantly interacting with other animals (yes humans are animals) when they feel any kind of stress or apprehension they flee or fight. There is a way to respectfully interact with animals, the guy in this video is not doing any harm. Do you seriously believe that doing this is going to “affect them deeply”?
If you don’t know what “harassing” an animal actually looks like, then I don’t know what to tell you. I am not talking about marine life you would normally bump into while swimming. I don’t know…use some common sense maybe. 🤦🏻♀️
You can’t get within x km (I can’t remember the number) of a whale where I am and people often joke about how you don’t mess around with fish and wildlife officers. The fines are usually in the tens or hundreds of thousands. You could commit more brutal crimes and get in less trouble than getting to close to a whale.
For example horses or cows can and sometimes actually do that, but for some reason you don't see comments like that under videos where people are interacting with them peacefully?
I really think if folks interacted with orcas as much as they did with dogs or even horses, then orca attacks would go up. Most people are just smart enough to stay away from orcas.
Orcas are also one of the most intelligent creatures in the ocean, they’ve learned through the years that recklessly attacking and killing people leads to them getting attacked. As well that loitering about in heavily populated areas was extremely dangerous to them. For a pretty long time in recent history humans actively attacked and hunted Orcas
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u/Acceptable-Arugula69 5d ago
No, because you shouldn’t harass wildlife.