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My Thoughts On Recent Orca Behaviors (Sink the rich?)

I'm sure the majority of you have heard a lot about the recent orca attacks in Gibraltar, Portugal, and Scotland on yachts. After White Gladis- the matriarch of the pod on the Iberian Peninsula- was injured by the rudder of a yacht, she began to retaliate and attack boats in the area. Two other orcas from her pod, known as Grey and Black Gladis, are also attributed to the majority (61%) of these attacks.

[ ID: An picture of the matriarch of the Iberian Peninsula orca pod, White Gladis, taken from above. She is a large killer whale covered in various scars, with the worst wounds near and on her rostrum. She also has long scars on the underside of her peduncle. The dorsal fin of another orca, presumably Black Gladis, is also visible in the bottom right corner of the image. ]

What I am seeing a lot of on Tumblr and other social media sites is people using her as an icon for anti-capitalism. Due to her targeting expensive ships, there are now plenty of posts about "sink the rich", "team orca", and jokes about an uprising and "how to please our new killer whale overlords". It's always fun to make light of recent events, but before we anthropomorphize and further popularize the idea of killer whales purposefully seeking out billionaires for an uprising, we should instead think a bit more about the reason for this behavior, and why it is happening so often.

[ DISCLAIMER: I am by no means an expert on cetaceans; However, they have been my special interest for about my entire life, and I am studying to become a marine biologist. If any of my information is incorrect, please feel free to correct me in a reblog or comment. It is not my purpose to spread misinformation. ]

Killer whales are extremely intelligent and social animals. They learn through play, observation, and most importantly, mimicry. Orcas mirror the behaviors displayed by other members of their pod, and this is very important for things like learning how to hunt. The ability to mimic others also forms trends within pods.

For example, in 1987, an orca from the K pod of Southern Residents began to balance a dead salmon on his head. It is unknown whether this was play or a form of learning as a juvenile learning to handle food, but either way, the behavior spread throughout the K pod and many orcas were spotted with fish hats. The behavior even miraculously spread to whales in other pods and then faded out by the time of summer. It was a trend, not unlike the ones that surface on social media, and it ended naturally in the summer of that year.

[ ID: The juvenile A99, or Alder, of the K pod of southern resident orcas shown balancing a fish on his rostrum. The majority of his body is under the water. The photo is taken from directly overhead. ]

This brings me to the current events; A lot of attacks, if not by Gladis, have been incited by juvenile orcas. These juveniles likely observed her lashing out and learned how to do so themselves. Not as an uprising, but as a form of play. The juveniles are not purposefully trying to hunt billionaires, but are just mirroring their matriarch to have fun. It is important to remember that orcas are one of the most widely distributed mammals on the planet. They inhabit every ocean, and pods can communicate with one another (There are calls in common between pods, facilitating socialization across communities) which is likely how the wrecking of boats traveled across the sea. I predict that this behavior will fade out in other pods just like the fish-hat trend did.

[ ID: A screenshot of a headline from The Atlantic titled "Killer Whales Are Not Our Friends". ]

The last thing I would like to touch on is that the anthropomorphism of orcas causes more harm than it aides them. It is okay to have fun with memes, but you should also know the science behind things, especially with extremely misunderstood animals like killer whales. They are always being observed with the lens of human behavior and morals- like the article above does. It is correct in one sense, however...

Killer whales are not our friends, nor our enemies. They are wild animals. They do not think like humans do. They do not understand human philosophy, they do not understand capitalism, and they do not understand the measure of good and evil.

Still, please do your best to stay on the side of orcas during this time without treating them like humans; Orcas are protected in U.S. waters under the Marine Mammal Protection Act, but I fear it may come to a point internationally that those ship owners who feel threatened by the orcas' behavior will try to retaliate. Staying informed is important to keep protecting these animals. Thank you.

#orcas #marine biology #killer whales #orca whale #white gladis #team orca