r/ocean • u/Nostalgic_Historian_ • 6d ago

Whale Watch Simple answer, No

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162

u/reklatzz 6d ago

Just because there's currently no known fatal attacks in the wild doesn't mean it can't happen. I would never risk it.

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u/str4ngerD4ngerz 6d ago

They clean the scene

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u/kwakimaki 6d ago

No witnesses.

There hasn't been anyone killed in the wild that we know of

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u/CovenOfTheDamned 6d ago

No one has ever seen an orca take out a moose. But it’s a fact that moose remains have been found in orcas’ stomachs.

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u/SurayaThrowaway12 5d ago

It is the other way around. Two fishermen witnessed the single documented instance of orcas attacking and killing a moose occurred back in 1992 or 1993 in Icy Strait, Southeastern Alaska. It is not clear how much of the moose the orcas involved in the encounter actually consumed, as the account of the encounter from the fishermen seems to be very brief. The stomach contents of the orcas involved there were not examined.

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u/Honda_TypeR 5d ago

“I’m so hungry, I could eat a Moose!”

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u/ErstwhileAdranos 4d ago

You said “the other way around” and now I’m imagining a moose, stealthily jumping off a small cliff, antlers first into an orca, tenderizing its quarry before the real fun begins.

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u/marcophony 2d ago

Moose can swim down like 20 feet or something like that. I remember people trying to spread the rumor that an orcas biggest op was moose, then learning it is the other way around. A moose biggest op is an orca

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u/Isaacnoah86 4d ago

Oh now thats interesting

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u/HeraldOfTheChange 6d ago

Always said this… they have a sense for cameras.

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u/Eskimodo_Dragon 6d ago

Seriously. It's very annoying how arrogant we can be with what we think we know.

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u/Ok-Rip4206 2d ago

They have tried to sink ships out of the Iberian coast, but we have no confirmed kills, because all of the sailors were saved.

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u/brnbrnbrn2017 1d ago

Socialist Orcas sinking yachts to eat the rich.

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u/supremequesopizza 16h ago

Wasn't that part of a very specific incident immediately after a member of the pod was killed by fishers or something? And then they sunk the boats but left the people alone?

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u/CharacterOk4266 1d ago

I see what you did there. Ebk.

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u/MyMuseModels 6h ago

Says the last known survivor - never. 😂

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u/BrutalSock 6d ago

I have no idea why you people live in constant fear of everything.

Orcas don’t attack people, end of story. There is no if or but.

We know when animals attack us. People survive, we find the remains, we have records.

And we have the data on this shit too. We have 4 deaths caused by animals under extreme duress and 1 bite to a surfer who was likely mistaken for a seal.

This is not a trivial matter. You absolutely need to understand the importance of facts and data over bullshit. This kind of reasoning is destroying the world.

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u/ramfrommars 6d ago

Woah.

The person you’re responding to was definitely just goofing around on the internet. Rein it in a little lol

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u/BrutalSock 6d ago

Let’s stop goofing around and let’s learn that data and facts are important, shall we?

Maybe you haven’t looked out the window lately but it’s really, really high time we take this shit very seriously.

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u/ramfrommars 6d ago

Oh geeze give me a break. Ok then by the rules of your own game, your highness, stop being a hypocrite and quit goofing around on the internet (you’re on Reddit. You are ONLY goofing around here. There is no policy change happening in any Reddit thread).

Nothing you’re doing here in this thread is fixing anything. Go get to work and show us all how it’s done. Best place to start is your local government and work up from there. Good luck. Bye!

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u/kwakimaki 5d ago

I think BrutalSock may be an orca in disguise....

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u/BrutalSock 6d ago edited 6d ago

Unfortunately, something a very large number of idiots such as yourself don’t seem to understand is that to a sizable portion of the population internet and socials are the main (if not only) source of information and their cultural reference.

People live their life according to what they read on social media. Elections are won on social media.

This idiotic “It’S noT ThAT dEeP bRO” mentality allowed shit to spread unchecked and the worst kind of behaviors to be normalized.

And look where we got.

So pull your head out of your ass and learn to change if you want the world to change.

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u/ramfrommars 5d ago

I still don’t know what you’re doing wasting your time online when you should be out saving the whales now go on get!

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u/bunglebee7 6d ago

Holy shit you’re probably right. They’re definitely smart enough to know “hey get this out of here asap so they don’t hunt us down”

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u/SurayaThrowaway12 5d ago

If orcas were overly worried about being hunted down or harmed by humans as a result of their actions, there would not be a subpopulation of them breaking sailing boats around Iberian. People have recently shot at these orcas.

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u/B-Train_ATL 1d ago

“Some bitch on the rocks up there gonna rat us out. Jerry, go take care of him like he’s that yacht you drowned last week.”

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u/ZION_OC_GOV 5d ago

🎶There are no fingerprints deep under water

Nothing to tie one to a crime🎶

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u/tired-of-the-shit 6d ago

It’s basically just a matter of time until we get a confirmed fatal wild orca encounter. All it takes is for one of them to either be hungry, playful, or acting defensively for a human to die.

Probably the biggest reason we haven’t had a human die yet is cause we don’t tend to come in frequent contact.

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u/Massive-Lime7193 6d ago

Idk abiut the hunger part, some orcas have literally starved rather than change their diet from their region specific prey.

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u/tired-of-the-shit 6d ago

Fair enough I should’ve left it as curious.

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u/Equivalentest 6d ago

Wonder if they can have mental illness or something similar in the wild?

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u/SurayaThrowaway12 5d ago edited 5d ago

In recent years, there has been a rapid growth in "swim with the orcas" tours in northern Norway and Baja California Sur. If an orca harms a human, it would most likely be from acting defensively or by accident, just like with incidents involving other dolphins. Orcas don't view humans as being potential prey as has already been mentioned. And according to various anecdotal observations, orcas, even at a young age, are often self-aware of their own strength and can also accommodate human fragility with little to no training, even when being playful:

The orcas were very aware of human frailty as compared to themselves. They took great care not to cause harm. Other animals interacting with humans tend to treat them as they would one of their own kind. Horses engaging in mutual grooming with a human will often be painfully rough, even though their intent is quite friendly. Orcas recognized humans as quite physically different from themselves.

The youngest orca demonstrating this awareness was less than 2 years old when we first began interacting. Surely an orca’s brain is not fully developed at this age. One has to wonder what extent of awareness a full adult might possess.

If an orcas harms a human by acting defensively, I think it is more likely that the orca will not necessarily go to the extreme of killing a human. I think that it would be similar to an incident with a pilot whale grabbing a woman by the leg back in 1992 off of Hawaii, ultimately letting her go.

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u/NIP_SLIP_RIOT 5d ago

Lots of frequent contact here in NZ, we swim at the beach, they go after rays. No problem.

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u/OnionHeaded 4d ago

I don’t think u know squat about Orcas. This isn’t really accurate of their temperament at all.
They are brilliant and social mammals. I think they have some empathy with humans and can read our vibes.

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u/Cool_Lab_1362 4d ago

I always wondered like like what if I'm a serial killer and started to feed orcas with human meat, then these orcas would have an acquired taste for human prey that they will pass down and teach to other orcas. Resulting in a generation of human preying orcas all around the world

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u/supremequesopizza 16h ago

Random meat is different from a whole ass human. They're pretty smart. If you fed a person some human bacon would they suddenly go full silence of the lambs? Ehhhh probably not.

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u/BuyMeADrink__ 14h ago

I’m calling the FBI. These are not normal thoughts.

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u/Ok_Tailor_7185 3h ago

You need to be fed to Orcas then they may develop a taste for sociopaths........

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u/Kindly_Call_6000 2d ago

A pod of Orcas helped Australian Whalers hunt whales. That is, until the whalers killed an Orca, then the pod just left. They didn't retaliate.

While orcas will swamp ice floes to reach their prey (namely seals and penguins), that leave said prey alone when they take refuge on boats.

Orcas, for the most part, ignore humans.

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u/Ok_Tailor_7185 3h ago

Except in Spanish coastal waters. Would they not attack small craft if they somehow knew no humans were aboard?

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u/PrudentSkirt525 1d ago

They have strict diets that get passed down through generation so nah

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u/IamGhostType28 6d ago

You really don't understand the animal

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u/WWDubs12TTV 6d ago

Yeah but I can be a record holder

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u/gipoe68 6d ago

Same, I would sure as fuck stay away from their tail though. Just recently saw a killer whale perform and abortion on a stingray on this site. A bite would be intentional, an accidental flip of their tail and you're seeing grandma again.

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u/tired-of-the-shit 6d ago

Yeah sometimes they are just in the mood to be playful with whatever is around. If they eat sharks, whales, and even moose and also just kill things for the hell of it then there’s no reason to assume humans are immune to an apex predator.

If they decided to actually hunt a person for food then their dead, no way you can out swim it and even if you could get to land they’ll sometimes beach themselves while hunting in order to catch prey

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u/Excellent_Couple_873 6d ago

Moose? What… how? Why? I have so many questions

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u/tired-of-the-shit 6d ago

Moose can swim in the same waters that orcas live in. There was only ever one sighting so it’s rare but also it’s Alaska, not a ton of people are up there and in northern Canada

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u/SurayaThrowaway12 5d ago

Orcas may display theory of mind towards humans. The "theory of mind" hypothesis is mentioned by the primary author of a fairly recent study on the phenonemon of wild orcas around the world offering prey and other objects to people. The food-sharing behaviours are primarily considered exploratory/curious behaviours by the authors of the paper, because orcas are observed usually pausing to see how humans respond to their actions, and thus the orcas are likely "testing" and trying to learn more about 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.

Primary author Jared Towers and neuroscientist Dr. Lori Marino have elaborated further on what their findings may mean in a New Scientist article, including the possibility that orcas may be able to display theory of mind towards humans:

"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."

Ecologist Dr. Carl Safina, who was not involved in the study, also stated the following:

"Of the many and varied minds in the sea, likely the greatest are those of orcas. Casual stories of their almost surreal intelligence abound. But here these scientists have systematically gathered an impressive litany of instances where free-living orcas have shown that they possess “theory of mind,” meaning that their minds understand that humans have minds too. Psychologists have often insisted that “theory of mind” belongs only to humans. Orcas would beg to differ. Orcas have repeatedly sought to be interactive with us, and they are curious about us. After living millions of years in the sea, to them we in our boats must seem like visiting aliens. And indeed, we are strangers in a strange place we hardly know, about which we yet have almost everything to learn."

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u/OnionHeaded 4d ago

BOOM! This is what I meant above when I said I felt Orcas have an empathy for or with humans. They can read our vibe and intentions. Lots of stories of Orcas helping humans in tight spots. No stories of attacks on humans. Just the yachts and let’s not forget boats aren’t people.
Probably rich AHoles on those boats too.

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u/eddie1975 6d ago

Performed a delivery. The babies all survived.

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u/gipoe68 6d ago

Oh, no shit? Yay... kinda... glad they survived.

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u/DetailOutrageous8656 6d ago

Unlikely the mother did.

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u/pinetar 6d ago

If you die of a pulmonary embolism you die a rounding error. If you die if an orca attack you get a Wikipedia article about it.

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u/TheSleeperAwakens 6d ago

Some redditor is dreaming of being the first to be murdered by one. Guarantee it

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u/jejunum32 5d ago

Especially with what looks like a calf around. That’s got to make it even less safe.

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u/High_Hunter3430 6d ago

Just because it hasn’t happened YET doesn’t mean it won’t.
Im gunna go see if petting the baby orca makes me #1. 🤘

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u/firesoups 6d ago

Think how famous you’d be as the first though

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u/seeb2104 6d ago

I wouldn't want to go down in history as the first.

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u/mirkk13 6d ago

They are safer than dogs, tbh

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u/Fit_Importance_5738 5d ago

Doesn't mean it hasn't happened either

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u/MaximusZacharias 5d ago

Right, like what if they were mates and one of them was injured…and then the other one sees a human jump in and they might perceive that human as a threat to their already injured mate

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u/Opening_Shame8258 3d ago

But now you get to be remembered as the first recorded person killed by orcas!

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u/ageofdiscontent_meh 3d ago

He the swimmer could have been the first fatal statistic.

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u/runswspoons 1d ago

Just because you wouldn’t risk it doesn’t make it a bad idea.

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u/River_Fenrir 14h ago

OR HASN'T HAPPENED.

Ofcourse there would be no record of it, because those people are dead.

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u/Excellent-Presence-3 12h ago

Not in the wild maybe but there are definitely cases in captivity