First Time In World History, Killer Whales Filmed Hunting Dolphins
Image from The Herald. Let’s see how long until we get a cease-and-desist.
A tour operator in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, unwittingly stumbled into the history books this weekend when he, his boat captain, and four tourists were in the right place at the right time to make the first recording ever of Orca whales hunting dolphins.
Ranier Schimpf was leading a group of divers when they noticed that one dolphin had been separated from a pod by five of the killer whales then repeatedly rammed. The dolphin was sent flying through the air by the force of impact from whales that were several times its size. With the smaller creature finally left laying unconscious on the surface, the whales pulled it below.
The two 7m male, two 5m female, and a 3m calf whales were clearly working as a team against the dolphin, and it appeared it was also a hunting lesson for the calf. More than that, they exhibited very protective behavior after the hunt. Becoming aware of the boat, they slowed, and began to circle the craft, investigating it. At that point the divers, making a decision I’ll only characterize as daring here, got into the water with the whales and kept filming them. This paid off, however. The whales, recognizing the humans as non-threatening, began to interact in a friendly way. The mother even presented the calf to one of the tourists, shielding it carefully, but allowing it to take a look at the strange visitors.
Capturing the hunting process of orcas, and their behavior immediately after, gives man access to a previously un-captured behavior that’s key to understanding the group dynamics within the pod. Conservation efforts are traditionally most successful when animals are the most thoroughly understood, and we are now, thanks to a group of tourists that were in the right place at the right time, a great leap closer to understanding both the hunting and social behaviors of killer whales.
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Comments
24 Responses to “First Time In World History, Killer Whales Filmed Hunting Dolphins”
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Peter
Posted: May 7th, 2008 at 5:22 am1Reply to this comment.Nature can be brutal at times. I feel for the poor dolphin, but I suppose orcas have to eat too.
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darby
Posted: May 7th, 2008 at 3:51 pm2Reply to this comment.check out Hayden Panettiere selling poached whale smoothies:
http://www.derober.com/2008/01/28/hayden-likes-her-whales-like-she-likes-her-coffee/
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Ian
Posted: May 7th, 2008 at 4:37 pm3Reply to this comment.Is this not a sort of cannibalism? Orcas are in fact dolphins, not whales (as this article seems to suggest… *cough*), so wouldn’t that be a bit strange? It’s fascinating, nonetheless.
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Titothecat
Posted: May 7th, 2008 at 4:39 pm4Reply to this comment.Just exactly what type of behavior did you expect from “Killer Whales”?
Perhaps that is how they got such a appropriate name.
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Nick
Posted: May 7th, 2008 at 4:44 pm5Reply to this comment.Where is the video of this footage?
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Where's The Footage?
Posted: May 7th, 2008 at 4:44 pm6Reply to this comment.Nice article, but WHERE’S THE FILM!?!?!?!?!?!?!?
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Funtasticallyalley
Posted: May 7th, 2008 at 4:53 pm7Reply to this comment.A story about a video isn’t a damn story with a video!
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Brian
Posted: May 7th, 2008 at 5:14 pm8Reply to this comment.Yea, and wait till the PETA get a hold of this.. [sarcasm] haha
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Darren
Posted: May 7th, 2008 at 5:21 pm9Reply to this comment.I don’t get it. The Transient killer whales of British Columbia do this all the time. That is what they do. They eat marine mammals, including dolphins, porpoise, seals, and other whales.
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anon
Posted: May 7th, 2008 at 5:42 pm10Reply to this comment.Seems like that photo is photoshopped to me
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Ray
Posted: May 7th, 2008 at 5:55 pm11Reply to this comment.Um, the Orca Watch web site for the Pacific Northwest has had pictures where the whales have attacked porpoises.
Try this link:
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Mike
Posted: May 7th, 2008 at 6:02 pm12Reply to this comment.Why is there an article about this video and NO video?
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Bob
Posted: May 7th, 2008 at 7:14 pm13Reply to this comment.Seems as though this is not the “First Time In World History” after all. (See link posted by Ray). Also, where’s the video mentioned in the headline?
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kris
Posted: May 7th, 2008 at 8:05 pm14Reply to this comment.what would stop them from doing something similar to a human?! :)
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Jack
Posted: May 7th, 2008 at 8:22 pm15Reply to this comment.What kind of Bonehead writes a story about a video and doesn’t even give us a teaser video?
Friggin useless!!Thanks “Ben”
Get Bent
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toots magoo
Posted: May 7th, 2008 at 8:27 pm16Reply to this comment.hate to break it to you, but Orcas, or “Killer Whales”, are not Whales.
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Andy
Posted: May 7th, 2008 at 8:33 pm17Reply to this comment.This is false it is not the first time anybody has ever captured Killer whales hunting dolphins on film!! I seen that on a wild life program on UK TV years ago! And have herd of it happening many times.
I cant remember the name of the actual tv program but it had footage of a large killer whale chasing a rather small type of dolphin. In the end the killer whale gave up because the dolphin was just too fast and kept out maneuvering it.
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MIKEL
Posted: May 8th, 2008 at 1:31 am18Reply to this comment.@lan
“Is this not a sort of cannibalism? …………….. so wouldn’t that be a bit strange?”Many animals practice cannibalism
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Pdawg
Posted: May 8th, 2008 at 6:30 am19Reply to this comment.no mention of the orcas eating the dolphin, just ramming it and then drowning it. They do this to teach the calf how to hunt.
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Jodi
Posted: May 13th, 2008 at 10:59 pm20Reply to this comment.Chill people here’s the url for the video on YouTube, it wasn’t hard to find.
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Katie
Posted: May 19th, 2008 at 11:53 pm21Reply to this comment.Killer whales ARE whales, and so are dolphins
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Brian
Posted: May 20th, 2008 at 6:56 pm22Reply to this comment.Killer whales are not whales, and neither are dolphins. It also would not be cannibalism, because Orcas and dolphins (any kind) are not the same species.
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Tom
Posted: May 23rd, 2008 at 4:26 pm23Reply to this comment.Firstly, in no way at all is this the first time this has ever been recorded. That orca eat other dolphin species has been known for many years and seen in many places, this is not new in any way. To call it cannibalisitc, displays a large level of ignorance about whales and dolphins and animals (including humans) in general. Humans in many parts of the world eat monkies, its a perfect parallel. Orca’s and the many dolphin species are not the same species, they are in the same group (cetacean), just as we are primates.
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Rainer Schimpf
Posted: May 25th, 2008 at 4:00 pm24Reply to this comment.Here is what you all are waitinmg for:
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