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Humpback whales are protecting gray whales from orca attacks off California coast

Humpback whales have a long history of interfering with killer whales' hunting habits, but researchers still aren't exactly sure why they do it.

I mean, it's going to take decades for science to confirm it, but it's because fuck killer whales.
 

wamberz1

Member
wpid-whalebar_450x592.jpg

High five!
This would freak me the fuck out so much. Imagine being near a creature that size in the water. It must feel crazy.
 

Tigress

Member
Gah so much hate just cause an animal hunts for its food. I guess you guys all hate cats and dogs too. They kill and eat cute animals as well.
 
Orcas are fucking awesome. My guess is the feeding "frenzy" is likely the adult orcas teaching their young how to hunt and the gray whales are slow, easy targets. IIRC, Gray whales migrate from Alaska to Mexico to breed, so on their trip back I'm guessing they're traveling with their own young, and the orca's being smart hunters are targeting them.
 
I was really enjoying it until this bit.

Black thinks the humpbacks may be fighting back against the orcas out of instinct, even though in these cases, they're not the ones being hunted.

As for those who think the humpbacks are behaving altruistically out of a desire to help gray whales, Black said, "It would be hard to believe they're doing it for that reason, but we don't know for sure."

I can't handle that type of anthropocentrism in science. A scientist making a biased statement like that really confounds me. Her job would now be to try and find out what the cause of this behavior is after witnessing it, but with a statement like those above you cannot even trust that she is open to finding the real answer. I guess we will be waiting to 2021 when they translate dolphin speech to recognize cognitive abilities in the rest of the animal kingdom. :/
 

Htown

STOP SHITTING ON MY MOTHER'S HEADSTONE
Humpback whales have a long history of interfering with killer whales' hunting habits, but researchers still aren't exactly sure why they do it.
In fact, killer whales are some of the only animals who prey on young humpbacks.
Truly, one of the great mysteries of science
 

AgentP

Thinks mods influence posters politics. Promoted to QAnon Editor.
We should be learning the language of the Humpback whales. That or the Orcas to tell them to fuck off!

Orcas are predators. Humans eat other animals too. Stop projecting some Disney nonsense onto wild animals.
 
I've considered orcas asshole since that video of the guys in a boat in the middle of them hunting seals and this poor little baby seal jumps on their boat terrified.

Fuck you free willie
 

highrider

Banned
I can't be against orcas, they are awesome predators. Remember these bigger whales are slaughtering krill and plankton in bucket loads! Granted they aren't as cute as seals.. But c'mon, seals are like the meatballs of the sea.
 

Cuburt

Member
Humpbacks know Orcas are the asshole of the ocean and probably have lost a family member to their vicious ways. It makes tons of sense that instinctually they know how to protect and fend against Orcas and happen to extend that protective instinct to other whales and mammals.
 

MattKeil

BIGTIME TV MOGUL #2
Crazy how Jaws turned a very quiet and aloof and introverted apex predator like the Great White Shark which lives in isolation, rarely attacks humans, kills quickly into a killer shark monster that people fear and kill. And Free Willy instead turns another apex predator, one that is violent, social, and brutally tortures and kills prey either by tossing seals until they tear, bullies whales and dolphins sometimes into an almost dog style pet to be loved.

We see more of ourselves in the Orca.

This is gonna be in blue planet 2 right?

If I were BBC Earth I'd have my crew on a boat out there yesterday.
 

DiscoJer

Member
Crazy how Jaws turned a very quiet and aloof and introverted apex predator like the Great White Shark which lives in isolation, rarely attacks humans, kills quickly into a killer shark monster that people fear and kill. And Free Willy instead turns another apex predator, one that is violent, social, and brutally tortures and kills prey either by tossing seals until they tear, bullies whales and dolphins sometimes into an almost dog style pet to be loved.

You're doing the same thing though, humanizing animal behavior. Orcas don't kill that way because they are sadistic, they are just hunting the way that millions of years of evolution has taught them how to hunt.

(Well, not taught exactly, but the ones that didn't hunt that way died while the ones that did presumably survived to have children and thus passed it on to their children)
 
Crazy how Jaws turned a very quiet and aloof and introverted apex predator like the Great White Shark which lives in isolation, rarely attacks humans, kills quickly into a killer shark monster that people fear and kill. And Free Willy instead turns another apex predator, one that is violent, social, and brutally tortures and kills prey either by tossing seals until they tear, bullies whales and dolphins sometimes into an almost dog style pet to be loved.

Thankfully there's a movie that gets it right.

Orca_KW.jpg
 

Tizoc

Member
Crazy how Jaws turned a very quiet and aloof and introverted apex predator like the Great White Shark which lives in isolation, rarely attacks humans, kills quickly into a killer shark monster that people fear and kill. And Free Willy instead turns another apex predator, one that is violent, social, and brutally tortures and kills prey either by tossing seals until they tear, bullies whales and dolphins sometimes into an almost dog style pet to be loved.
Clearly u never watched the 1970s novie Orca
http://m.neogaf.com/showthread.php?t=1256364
 

MarveI

Member
Orcas are AWESOME. My fav sea creatures. Incredibly smart and social but a predator nonetheless. Never harmed a human being in the wild. Only harmed them in captivity.

Now Dolphins are the real pricks of the ocean.
 
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