Orcas are bringing humans gifts | Hacker News Reader

Orcas are bringing humans gifts

newscientist.com

164 pointswslh97 comments

Reminds me of the Killer whales of Eden, where for a period of 90 years or so orcas would assist whalers in catching whales. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killer_whales_of_Eden,_New_Sou...

Perhaps they heard about orcas attacking boats (again), and are working on maintaining good relations with a species that they can’t help but notice impacts their wellbeing.

Orcas (and whales in general) attacking boats died off steeply after the abandonment of whaling by most of the world. With orcas this makes perhaps a little less sense from an incentive standpoint, but it seems that whale attacks and specifically orca attack frequency moved more or less together.

Recently there has been a rash of orcas attacking and sinking small yachts and boats around the Iberian peninsula, which is mostly attributed to juveniles within a certain cultural group. (Dolphin antifa lol?)

Realistically though the gifting is probably not “politically motivated” lol. But with intelligent animals, I’ve found that it’s very, very easy to underestimate the often surprising sophistication of their actions.

Orcas have been to known to intentionally assist whalers hunting for Baleen whales, so I don't know about this theory

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Tom_(orca)

> Orcas (and whales in general) attacking boats died off steeply after the abandonment of whaling by most of the world.

That's interesting if true. What do you base this on? In other words: do you have a source for that?

Only source is that I’ve been a sometimes-mariner and cruising family captain since the 80s, hearing about the reports on the cruiser HF nets, and gradually witnessing a change from often aggressive , sometimes disastrous encounters to mostly peaceful or even sometimes friendly or helpful encounters into the 2010’s.

I’m sure there is data somewhere, though. In the 90s, the gradual drop off in attacks was widely attributed to whales that witnessed whaling aging out. I doubt there is any scientific validation for this theory, but it is plausible as there are many accounts of whales with old whaling wounds being exceptionally aggressive, with some becoming legendary in their own right.

> many accounts of whales with old whaling wounds being exceptionally aggressive, with some becoming legendary in their own right

Moby Dick?

Pretty sure moby dick is fictional, but yeah, sort of. Stories often embellish on IRL accounts.

Leopard seals have been observed practicing similar behaviour:

"How a Leopard Seal Fed Me Penguins" (2014)

<https://www.nationalgeographic.com/adventure/article/140311-...>

Fun video on that page.

Orca Uses Bait To Hunt Bird https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14wWxaMR2Mg

Orcas understand the concept of bait. It is possible the bird was either a gift or a bait to lure in a bigger prey.

Surely we can rule out bait if the cameraman is underwater with the Orca. At that point there isn't much stopping the Orca preying on the human especially if we're acknowledging their intelligence.

They apparently hunt Moose on occasion: https://www.forbes.com/sites/scotttravers/2024/10/22/4-decad...

(I know Forbes is not generally the best link, but the author of this article is an actual evolutionary biologist)

The specific claim I'm disputing is that the Orca is using the 'gift' as 'bait' here. The implication that once the human bites or engages with the bait they are then preyed upon. The fact that moose are preyed upon by Orcas is irrelevant here.

The point I am trying to make is that Orcas can choose to prey on large land animals when they are in the water and that they are not using the gift as bait. Why do you think I am disagreeing with you?

Because he naturally assumed that you were attempting to say something relevant to his own claim rather than a complete non sequitur. Maybe in your head you intended to somehow make the point that they're not using the gift as bait but you didn't say anything of the sort so it wasn't your point as written. You also said nothing about humans and moose both being large land animals (and from the Orca's POV it's not likely that it considers humans to be land animals) and that therefore yada yada ... none of this was expressed.

(I see quite a bit of this, where someone is called out and then they say "my point was X" where nothing they had said previously expressed X.)

Only on the internet will "here's a related example why you might be correct" result in strange discussions like these. Makes me sad.

Perhaps but it's the norm. I try to preface what I write with "I agree" just to try and clarify my position ahead of time. Remember that there's a bunch of context missing in text such as facial expressions, body language and tone of voice that would have quickly made clear that you were in agreement ;-)

> Only on the internet will "here's a related example why you might be correct" result in strange discussions like these. Makes me sad.

It would help if the comment said any of those quoted words. The context as I see it was:

1> they could be baiting the human

2> why bait the human and not eat it?

3> They hunt moose

With no further words, it could be intended as they hunt moose, so they clearly like surf and turf and would love to eat a human. Or it could be intended as they hunt moose, they know how to hunt land animals so it's a choice to give a gift that'a not bait.

In person, someone hearing the 3rd comment would probably make a confused face and the person making the offering of a moose reference would make clarifying comments.

I pointed out that he never expressed his point and then he comes back with a quote that again is not anything he said. Sad indeed.

And yes, these sorts of discussions do occur in person, although I rarely encounter people who say things like "orcas attack moose" with ZERO elaboration--that is indeed strange. And if someone said that's irrelevant and they then said "My point was ..." I would still say "Well, you didn't say that".

No, I've had those conversations IRL. Human communication is inherently fraught with misunderstandings.

Consider instead reflecting on why your point was misunderstood?

My reading was, that post said "I don't think it makes sense that it's bait, because the humans are already in the water and they aren't eating them"

Then you said "Sometimes they eat moose"

You did not provide the reader with any language or reasoning connecting those ideas, so it comes off as a non sequitur.

Compare instead with something like, "Moreover, we know this isn't just because humans are land mammals, because they have eaten moose"

Only on the internet, where most of us (maybe even yourself) have the majority of our discussions?

I've been on the internet since the early 90:ies, and this does happen semi-regularly, especially during the last decade. But I have never in my life experienced such situations stemming from an agreeing reflection/interjection during face-to-face communication. Sometimes it feels like people are (un)intentionally looking for reasons to disagree rather than anything else.

I agree with them, your original post lacked clarity. I propose that the reason these types of conversations are less likely in person is because there is typically no log of exactly what was said and people tend to get defensive and narratives change. This makes it a pointless endeavor.

I would suggest, rather than wondering why people on the internet point things like this out, maybe wonder how many people in real life never bothered and just write you off.

It is not that surprising that this kind of misunderstanding happens more often on the internet. In real life we communicate with more than just our words. We see how our communication partners say what they say, where they are looking, what cadence and tone they use. We also see what faces they make while the other person was talking, how alert they were.

When all of that is missing it is harder to glean the tenor or direction of the message.

And then on top of that there is a thing I would call "expectation bias". We expect to see something, and when what we see does not match our expectations we sometimes become blind to that. Conversations on this site very often go "argument - counter argument - counter counter argument - counter counter counter argument". Because of that people (me included!) often read comments with the expectation that it will at least in some way disagree with what was said before. And once someone has that expectation it is easy to misread a supporting comment as a weird and under-argued disagreement.

> Makes me sad.

I do understand. And you are not wrong. Misunderstandings are sad. It seems we sometimes forget that there is an other human being on the other side of the screen too. So sadness is not unwarranted sometimes.

But on a constructive level we can recognise where the confusion slips in and we can add extra words to help lubricate the discussion. I often start my comments with stating my level of agreement. (From "Yes, you are 100% right..." via "You are mostly right, but I disagree with X" to "No, I'm afraid that is not true at all") Basically typing more characters because others can't see my gestures, and can't hear the tenor of my voice.

For example in this case you could have wrote: "I agree that an orca probably doesn't see a human diver as a significant threat, and wouldn't need to use a bait to attack it. After all they are known to attack moose too! ..." (As an example. Of course I don't know if that is what you were actually thinking.)

Could your comment been understood in an ideal world even without that? I think so. Could it have been fortified with a few choice words to better signal that what you are providing are related examples to support the already stated argument? I would think so too.

"here's a related example why you might be correct"

Again: YOU DIDN'T SAY THAT. And there's no obvious logic that connects the two--certainly the person you responded to didn't see any such logic and said so: "The fact that moose are preyed upon by Orcas is irrelevant here."

As someone else said: "Consider instead reflecting on why your point was misunderstood?"

i.e., take responsibility because--seriously--this is on you.

What is sad is how you completely ignored and blew off what I wrote and then just repeated the very same thing I critiqued, and implied that I was at fault for the "strange discussion"--when in fact there was nothing at all strange about the clear and valid points that I made.

And as others have noted, it's not "only on the internet"--the internet is simply where the vast majority of such discussions occur. But it's not the only place where someone might say "oh, you didn't make that clear, and it's still not clear to me how they are logically connected". And it's not the only place that I have encountered people who reason poorly, act in bad faith, and blame everyone but themselves.

I won't comment further.

I'm awkward enough to cause this issue in real life without any help from the internet. :shrug:

Never happened in the wild. The only recorded incidents of Orca attacking humans were in the aquariums.

The birds in the video are out of reach (until one isn't). I'm sure orcas perceive humans in water as very slow and easy to catch - baiting would not make sense.

I wonder if we accidental scare or chase their predators away.

Or, hmm. Orca are pack animals I believe. If we killed a competing family of Orca (even by accident), maybe the gift is a thanks for the perception of "siding with my family".

I don’t think there’s much that will predate orcas, at least adults, other than perhaps humans or hypothetically other orcas.

They are apex predators, they don’t have natural predators.

Humpback whales have been known to defend other animals from Orcas. The food of my enemy is my friend type of thing I guess.

The humpback whale and orca beef is kind of hilarious.

Orcas are kind of assholes and it seems other animals care.

What preys on orcas? It seems like a bad idea.

Someone once pointed out to me that if sonar is your primary sensor, and sonar "sees" through things, human lungs look much like dolphin lungs - and orcas' presumably. We are one of them. A pretty feeble one of course, and perhaps one that needs feeding.

Here's an interesting result of that: whales that have developed “internal antlers” (https://academic.oup.com/biolinnean/article-abstract/113/2/5...). Mostly invisible to eyes but perfectly visible to ears.

Abstract:

Skulls of many living and extinct beaked whales (Ziphiidae) contain various bizarre bone and tooth structures. Many of them show sexual dimorphism in their skull anatomy: males have bizarre skull structures, whereas females do not. Opinions differ as to what the function of these structures might be. Some believe that these are weapons; others, that they are sound transmitters. This article argues that these structures are the means of visual display. Many of the bizarre bone structures of beaked whales are not exposed like ‘visuals’ of terrestrial tetrapods, but are located deep in soft tissues. Nevertheless, toothed whales recognize objects (including three-dimensional bodies), using echolocation. So, along with visual means, they can ‘see’ and ‘show’ their internal bone structures with echoic imaging and use them as informational sources in social interactions and in individual or species recognition.

I thought they attacked dolphins?

And whales, seals, otters, walruses, etc., all of which have lungs.

I suspect some other basis.

Sticking with the theory though: Maybe they can "see through" us enough to know we're literally just skin and dense bones with very little fat or calories.

That would be more likely.

Technically they are dolphins. But yes, some populations of Orcas do eat other dolphins. Some don't. Their feeding habits seem to be cultural.

autism warning

As most people understand the word "dolphin", Orcas are not technically dolphins though they belong to the same family.

I've heard the claim that Orcas are a species of porpoise, like dolphins, but I can't even corroborate that since Wikipedia is claiming that porpoises are distinct from dolphins.

The clearest explanation I've been able to find comes from this article: https://nextlevelsailing.com/relationship-between-orca-kille...

> The classification of orcas as dolphins stems from their scientific categorization. Both orcas and dolphins fall under the family Delphinidae, which encompasses oceanic dolphins. Despite their formidable size and fearsome reputation, orcas share more in common with their smaller dolphin relatives than with other whale species.

So Orcas and dolphins are both categorized in the family Delphinidae which is colloquially referred to as the "Oceanic Dolphins" so, depending on what you mean, yes Orcas are technically dolphins but then ... so are dolphins. Meaning that "dolphin" and "delphinidae" refer to two distinct things even though all dolphins are delphinidae and the colloquial term for "delphinidae" is "oceanic dolphin." But it's important to recognize that the oceanic dolphins is a pretty wide family that includes several species that have the word "whale" in their name, such as belugas and narwhals, in addition to orcas.

Tbh, just subjectively, they look a lot more dolphiny than whaley to me. They're like dolphins that hit the gym.

And the paint bucket.

> human lungs look much like dolphin lungs - and orcas' presumably.

More so than the lungs of other animals? Or is it just that "lungs" stand out as an unusual feature in that environment?

..as opposed to fish. Which dolphins/porpoises/orcas definitely eat.

They can probably distinguish between similarly sized but distinct species. A dolphin and human have plenty of other distinguishing features as swimming creatures.

https://archive.ph/OkNVu

It’s up and down with these guys, either gifts of food or they’re chewing off your rudder.

Just like humans vs birds. Some birds will see our good side (humans helped some birds with broken wings, fed some other birds), some will see our bad side (humans shooting birds).

Trying to placate the gods who are busy destroying their world...

I think they do have either instinctual or cultural knowledge that the soft slow things from above will bring death if they are offended.

Cats do this, and they're less intelligent than orcas.

Dogs will too.

It's a lot like when we "share" our worms with fish.

Pacific cultures have long oral histories referencing altruistic and cooperative behavior from Orcas.

There have been exactly 0 known deadly attacks from wild orcas in history.

Maybe the Orcas are smart enough to make sure not to leave witnesses :D

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orca_attacks '0 or never' is unlikely to be true.

"Experts are divided as to whether the injuries and deaths were accidental or deliberate attempts to cause harm"

I mean, i don't know, if you can't come up with a single clear cut example in the wild in all of human history, i think that is enough to put them very low on the threat list.

Strawman. The claim disputed was specifically "There have been exactly 0 known deadly attacks from wild orcas in history.", not "they're low on the threat list".

That claim was made in response to a different claim above, to which "orcas have not been clearly shown to attack humans outside captivity" is a perfectly cromulent response. Pedantry like this really is annoying. This isn't high school debate.

The personal attacks on me with claims of pedantry are erroneous and offensive. What I noted is a textbook example of a strawman argument, and neither of the attacks on me are relevant or accurate.

A) you're being overly pedantic

B) according to the article there is no consensus among scientists that any of these incidents actually constitute an "attack". So if we are being this level of pedantic, its arguably true that "There have been exactly 0 known deadly attacks from wild orcas in history."

Given the hundreds of attacks on boats off the Iberian peninsula, including four sinkings, the lack of human deaths is partly a matter of luck.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iberian_orca_attacks

These are attacks on boats, not on humans.

"Wild orcas have never been documented hunting or eating humans, so it is unlikely this relates to wanting a meal." (quote from https://www.newscientist.com/article/2378796-why-have-orcas-...)

That would seem like an academic distinction to someone injured or killed during such an incident.

Elephants that trample humans also aren’t looking for a meal.

Given that orcas are apex predators, I think it’s worthwhile to make the distinction between death or injury of humans due to direct predation versus accidental or indirect means.

The original comment was:

> It's a lot like when we "share" our worms with fish.

So, it is a relevant distinction, the theory of that comment is that they are using them as bait for humans. That they aren’t ever recorded as intentionally killing and eating humans is relevant.

They fight boats for other reasons apparently, maybe they or territorial, or maybe the boats are making some annoying nose?

Perhaps the bait is intended to attract boats.

I wonder if they target boats using depth sounders? You could imagine the noise might be annoying or aggravating to orcas.

The only other species other than humans that has as long post-reproductive lives.

This is not correct in the least.

As one of many, many examples, a galapagos turtle reaches sexual maturity at 20 to 25 years of age, and lives 100 to 200 years.

I think barrenko meant "lives after reproductive ability ends", and AFAIK Galapagos tortoises can reproduce at those ages. Certainly the males can, but so can 80yo human males.

Something like that, I take full fault.

I guess we don't have data for Greenland sharks.

thank god.

Perhaps, what you mean, are the only other social mammals with K-population selection reproductive strategy?

FWIW, elephants also fall into this category. It’s theorized that “grandparents” are important cultural archives.

Both orcas and elephants are also matriarchal.

Perhaps you mean among mammalian species? Reptiles can live long lives and experience multiple reproductive cycles. Alligators technically live forever.

Clearly:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DmxCKbfV4AAA59g?format=jpg&name=...

> could suggest they have theory of mind and engage in altruism – even across species

I watched a pod of orcas kill a new born grey whale. They may have a different idea of "altruism" than we do.

Plenty of "god-fearing", "ex-boyscouts" have engaged in massacres involving children as part of military actions.

Humans are undoubtedly capable of altruism, and simultaneously capable of the most egregious acts of violence the world has ever known.

How do they decide who to offer stuff to? There's a bunch of creatures in the ocean, why would they offer things to humans?

Also, do people ever give the orca anything they want?

Maybe they are just curious or doing it for whimsy sake. They have been observed to wear salmon on their heads for no apparent reason… we do all sorts of odd stuff due to a temporary surplus of brainpower.

I found the news hilarious. Orcas used to wear salmon hats back in the 80s, then the trend disappeared, only to make a comeback in recent years. It really feels like they have their own version of human fashion trends or group behavior. The funniest part is that their fashion statement is a dead salmon instead of clothes.

https://web.archive.org/web/20251001135117/https://www.natio...

Leopard seals, the apex predator of the Sourthern Ocean near Antarctica, have been known to bring penguins as gifts to divers. When the divers didn't take the chicken dinner, they helpfully killed it, so the diver could eat.

Disappointingly to them, no doubt, the divers still didn't dig in. But it's the thought that counts. Literally, since leopard seals can easily kill humans in the sea and on the land.

Anyway, mammals are capable of thoughtful behaviors towards others outside their own species.

As I'd just commented myself. Link: <https://www.nationalgeographic.com/adventure/article/140311-...>

related farside:

“The herring’s nothin’. I’m going for the whole shmeer!” [0]

[0] https://static0.srcdn.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2024/...

The ones that aren’t attacking boats I presume.

This orca prefers to gift us what appears to be a ships wheel. It’s unclear the cultural significance of this offering.

Maybe it’s the same ones, and they desire peace

The orcas "attacking" boats are just teenagers having found a new fun thing to play with. Too bad it involves damaging private property, but I don't think it matters much to them.

Strange that the article keeps using the term killer whales.

Everybody want to be loved.

uh oh.... i guess the space highway got approved....

There’s no point in acting surprised about it. All the planning charts and demolition orders have been on display at your local planning department in Alpha Centauri for 50 of your Earth years, so you’ve had plenty of time to lodge any formal complaint and it’s far too late to start making a fuss about it now.

And the humans say the LLMs are the stoichastic parrots in the room...

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