Whale Killer
Facts about the Oraca:
1. The weight of an adult Orca can get up to 10 tonnes and an adult
Killer Whale can get up to 12 meters long.
2. Technically, the Orca is not a whale, his actually belong to the
dolphins family.
3. Orcas are generalist eaters, consuming fish, seals and sea lions,
dolphins, and even bigger sharks or whales then themselves.
4. Like sharks the orca always have to remain active when sleeping,
that because they must actively decide when to breath. As a result,
while sleeping only one half of the orca’s brain set to sleep with one
eye open.
5. The high of an adult orca’s back fin male can get up to 1.8 m, which is
more than twice the size of the female’s fin. Upon males, bigger the
back fin the more attractive the whale.
Social structure:
Killer whales are highly social and live in pods—large groups of whales that
are seen together over half the time. Pods typically consist of two to 15
animals, but larger groups sometimes form for social interaction or mating.
Pod members communicate with each other through underwater sounds
such as clicks, whistles, and pulsed calls. Each pod in the Pacific Northwest
possesses a unique set of sounds that are learned. These sounds help keep
groups together and.
Pods also work together to hunt. They use a coordinated hunting strategy
and work as a team to catch prey. This ability makes killer whales a top
predator.
In a CT test of the orca’s brain, scientist found that the orca have a part of
their brain that humans don’t, in further testing they realize that this part is
responsible for emotional feelings and connections. That means that the
orca have a better, much stronger emotional quantity then we have.
Hunting Techniques
1. Seals are a favorite food item of orcas living around the Antarctic ice. By
leaning on ice, seals stay just out of reach. However, killer whales have
found a clever way to knock the seals into the water. They swim towards
the ice and just before reaching it, they dive underneath, giving a lastsecond push to the wave with their tails. The resulting wall of water crashes
over the ice and knock off the seal.
2. Using its back fin, the orca flips the shark over, sending into a coma that
scientists call “tonic immobility”. Afterwards, the shark makes for an easy
and safe meal.
3. Orcas don’t limit themselves to eating animals smaller than themselves,
even blue whales. To hunt a Blue Whale they would launch themselves out
of the water onto the whale’s back, trying to prevent its blowhole from
reaching the surface of the water. This kind of hunting technique duration
can get up to 5 hours due to the ability of the blue whale to hold his breath
for more than an hour.
4. Ambush technique: Sea lions swimming off the Atlantic coast of South
America After all, they seem to be safely out of reach of orcas in deeper
waters nearby. Orca charges quikliy to the beach and catch the sea lion.
The orca is the only whale known to purposely beach itself. It uses a
flapping motion to get its enormous body back into the water.
Video: 2:40-4:30
Whale Shows
The killer whale's intelligence, trainability, playfulness in captivity and huge
size have made aquatic parks popular. From 1970 to 2000, 55 whales were
taken worldwide, organizations such as World Animal Protection and others
campaign against keeping them in captivity. In captivity, they often develop
fin collapse which is a result of lack of mobility due to their small tanks. An
average tank is about 90 meters long and 30-meter depth, and in wild an
average Orca swims about 180 kilometers a day. Captives have heavily
reduced life expectancies, they lived for 20 years on average (both males
and females). However, in the wild, females can get up to 70–80 years and
males up to 50–60 years. In addition, the Orca’s in wild get dipper into the
water when the sun is in full force because their skin is sensitive – but in
the tanks they are living they can’t get dip enough to avoid the sun - that
might cause skin burn. To avoid the visitors to ask about the unusual look
the trainers paint the whale in black to make the whale look healthy.
diet
trainers are instructed to starve Orcas if they do not perform well – and the
opposite which create frustrate on among the whale, in addition when a
female whale gives birth they get immediately separate which creates even
a bigger stress and frustration – frustration that can cause an accident.
A killer whale named Tilikum, in his whole life (25 years), killed 3 trainers.
kills that came out as a way to unload his stress and frustration.
Till now there’s no record of Orca harming humans in nature.
Video: 2:35 -3:15, 15:50-16:50
Protests
In 2013 a movie named “BlackFish” came out and was a big part of the
protest against whale watching. Basically, The movie shows how the
industry tried to hide the dark side of whale watching and how immoral it
is. In addition, the movie made a intense public pressure towards whale
watching and whale keeping (so intense that the hole market loss 1.7
billion dollar the year of the film’s release) . In 2017 “Seaworld “ – one of
the biggest whale watching parks around the world came out with a
statement that they won’t bring any more Orcas but they either won’t let
free any of the Orcas. Which mean that the park’s Killer whales will be the
last generation (probably for another 15 years).
*Opinion+Summery*