12/8/2022 0 Comments Orca predators![]() The enormous beasts were decimated by commercial whaling in the 20th century.īut their numbers have rebounded in recent decades. He noted that one reason these types of attacks have been so difficult to document is because blue whales, which are currently listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act, used to be rare. ![]() "As a scientist, I tend to look at these things sometimes less emotionally, but I'm affected by it emotionally," Calambokidis confessed to NPR.īut, he said, even though it's hard to watch, it's a part of nature. The gruesome video footage of the encounter between the blue whale and the gang of killer killer whales rocked John Calambokidis, a blue whale biologist at Cascadia Research. "To take on and successfully take down an adult blue whale has lifted the bar way higher than I would ever imagine," Totterdell said. According to researchers who had tagged white sharks with a tracking device off the coast of California, just the presence of a pod of killer whales, also called orcas, drove away the sharks for months. They are so fierce that even great white sharks seem to be scared of them, a recent study shows. Their work, he says, definitely shows that killer whales, which actually belong to the dolphin family, are the top predator in the ocean.Įven great white sharks steer clear of killer whales And they've done it more than once, publishing their findings in the journal Marine Mammal Science. While killer whales were known to attack blue whales, the team of researchers were the first to ever document a successful takedown. ![]() Totterdell says he doesn't know why but it appears to be a "preferred cut." The scientists watched as the killer whales ate the larger mammal's tongue first. Sensing their opportunity, two killer whales leapt on top of it, forcing the blue whale under the water until it eventually drowned. It went on for hours and eventually, the blue whale got weaker. Just tiring it out," Totterdell, whose team recorded the violent hunt recalled. "There was a good 10, 12 that were active in keeping this animal harassed. They took turns, biting chunks of flesh from the largest animal on the planet. And it was fighting back.īut the killer whales, which were only about a third as big, were making coordinated attacks and working together to exhaust their prey. "Within seconds we realized, oh my God, a pack of killer whales is attacking a blue whale," Totterdell, who is lead researcher for the Cetacean Research Centre in Australia, told NPR. From the boat, all Totterdell could make out was a much larger gray blue animal at the center of it all. The first thing they spotted was about twenty black and white shapes in the water - a group of killer whales surrounding something. They have well developed senses of hearing and vision, use echolocation, emitting high pitched clicks, bouncing sound off objects to locate prey, they communicate with each other using clicks and whistles.It was a stormy March morning in 2019 off Australia's Western Coast, when whale researcher John Totterdell and his students caught sight of the chase in the water. Orca whales live in a matriarchal society, their offspring living and traveling with their mothers, sometimes after becoming fully grown. Individual pods will work together as teams to catch meals, they have no natural predators. “Resident” pods have a smaller home range and feed predominantly on fish, “Offshore” pods are smaller and are seldom seen, little is known about them, “Transient” pods tend to travel over a wider area and are occasionally seen off the coast of Depoe Bay, they feed primarily on marine mammals and juvenile gray whales. The males can live to be 50-60 years females live 80-90 years. ![]() An Odontoceti (toothed) mammal known as the Orca or killer whale is largest member of the dolphin family, but mistakenly called one of the great whales because of its size, they are found in all oceans of the world in “transient,” “resident,” and “offshore” family groups called pods. ![]()
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