Learn more about these incredible animals! Why Orcas Are Called Killer Whales → ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-FIwjehSYKJg.html New Species of Orca → ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-TnJVE2oNJH0.html Why Orcas Are Sinking Ships → ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-C0cGdd9lUgY.html Orcas Caught in Bycatch → ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Xdu-6JavJcg.html
Could this behavior lead to extinction of some sharks, its said there is like 2% or so of sharks remaining in our oceans? And Orca's are doing great, they got their own boats these days! xD Love the content, love Orca's but it has me worried for the Great white and other sharks, bad enough that us Humans hunt and kill them for stupid things like soup... xD
I'm watching animal shows virtually all my life. I go back to the Walt Disney True Life adventures from the '60s & '70s... I remember Marty Stouffer's Wild America series from the 70s and 80s-- not to mention the BBC's original Nature series with David Attenborough... This 9-minute snippet about the many different subsets of killer whales, along with how they predate great white by first inducing tonic immobility-- with footage included, no less, was the best spent 9 minutes in my career watching "nature" programming... Keep up the great work KP!!!!
I was scuba diving in the Pacific Northwest off the coast of Vancouver Island when a pod of orcas came through. A young orca started to swim near me but was cut off by a large male, who "pinged" me underwater. The clicks and whistles were quite loud, but what surprised me the most was that I could feel the sound of the orca... in my bones. I guess that the soft tissues of my body, being mostly water, just passed the sound through. But my bones? I could feel them vibrate. Strangest, most amazing sensation I have ever experienced. I was never frightened at all. The experience was beautiful. They just were checking me out. I got a huge tattoo of an orca following the experience. Amazing and beautiful animals.
Yeah, it's a freaky and also almost comforting experience. A buddy and I were scuba diving of Hermanus in the Cape and a pod of orcas suddenly appeared around us. They were swimming around us and were clearly observing us when we got pinged. I could feel it in the very core of my bones. They were chill and hung out around us for probably 5 min with one even nudging me lightly and the swimming past me so close that I ran my fingers across almost the entire length of it's body. Then the whole pod just turned and slowly disappeared again. I sooooo wish that I had a GoPro but this was in the late 90's 😂 😂
Retired marine biologist here. That was as informative and interesting an introduction as I've ever heard. Well done. Editing is excellent. Subscribed!
@@KPassionate The costume and location changes must have been tough! When you can show people something and explain clearly what they're seeing and then provide more evidence- it's the way science videos should be made. Sadly, not every topic holds as much fascination. A friend spent a summer tabulating polychaete fecal pellets. His channel never took off.
3000 miles....the fear stayed in shark brain for weeks....yep that's true fear and respect...sharks put In their place around orcas..or else it's pay with their livers..
I was picking mussel on the foreshore 80 yards off shore bull (sh ) I've snorkelerd much of Australia and was wrapt ( enchanted ) to see that 2 metro fin 😊 but when I looked down my feet all on their own had decided and where shuffling me backwards 😮 😅 Yeah ! Boss
How sharks will dominate an ecosystem until a handful of orcas show up literally reminds me of small gangs getting pushed out of their territory when a bigger, more violent gang shows up lol.
@@UnwantedGhost1-anz25No Orca can challenge a full grown great white shark. This is a baby shark or even a dolphin in the other side of the video. Has been debunked many times why are we still seeing this garbage
I saw that video a few days ago, that was like a freight train that hit that great white. Insane. People need to understand also how SMART and how BIG Orcas are.
I was extremely fortunate to be one of the handful of folks working on Southeast Farallon Island in 1997 when the first documented Orca on White Shark predation event occurred. This pod must not have been terribly experienced with what to do with it, as one the Orca swam around with the shark for quite a while before evisceration. I actually scooped up a piece of that liver with my hand for biopsy, and that hand stank for a week! This also was the first time that all the sharks vacating the area was recorded. At the time, nobody really had any notion that such an interaction was possible, so it's been really exciting to see all the theories play out (some supported very well - using tonic immobility; others not so much - at the time we thought maybe the desertion of the island by the sharks was due to competitive displacement) and all the knowledge and documentation that has followed since then.
This is interesting! I read a paper on the Farallon Islands event in 90's but I wasn't able to find the video so I decided not to include it. What I read made it sound like the mom was likely defending her calf rather than a predation event. I also read that orcas had just killed and partially consumed a sea lion when the shark approached, possibly attracted to the sea lion carcass, so another possibility is that the orcas were defending their kill. This seems to align with what you're saying about how they didn't know what to do with the shark after they killed it! What also fascinates me is that the orcas (CA6 and CA2) were part of a mysterious group of whales often seen around Los Angeles in the 80s and 90s. These orcas didn't fit into any known ecotype and the 97 incident was the last time they were seen. Most seem to think they might be down in Mexican waters if they're still alive. Maybe I need to do a follow up video...
@@KPassionate The killer in the first 90's event, C2 wasn't the mother of the calf. C2 had no kids (at least not at that time). ...according to the captain of the boat witnessing the incident, C2 might have been protecting their food, a sea lion they've killed some 30 minutes earlier.
I read about the sea lion and the notion that they were protecting a kill in the same paper I mentioned above. I'll link my sources below. The paper indicates that CA2 was the smaller of the two orcas and that the larger was presumed to be CA6, her primary companion within the pod. The LA times article on the event refers to the smaller orca (CA2) as being "her calf" so I assumed this meant that CA6 was her mother. [1] www.birdpop.org/docs/pubs/Pyle_et_al_1999_White_Shark_Killer_Whale_Predation.pdf [2] www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1997-oct-10-sp-41347-story.html I would love to learn more about this event and the CA pod, so please feel free to share any sources that indicates their genealogy.
@@KPassionate It's always hard to leave replies with links. Sometimes youtube just wipes them out. I'm going to try a second time because I've found an old version of the original documentary from Nat Geo If the replies with the links get wiped out, then search for yourself for the title: The Battle of the Strongest Killer Whale Orca Vs Great White Shark Full Length Documentary ...and thank you for your dedication to these amazing animals.
Yup! I can confirm. I went to Cape Town and went shark cage diving around 2019. It was incredible. Saw 14 sharks over about 2 hours. Went again 2 years later. We were told the bad news, Orcas were hunting the sharks and drove them away. Had never happened in Cape Town which is famous for its sharks. However we still went on the tour as there were copper sharks, who may not be quite as big as the great whites but were more aggressive and put on quite a show going for the bait.
Most fascinating animal in the ocean by far. My favorite pod is in Antarctica. They use “wave washing” techniques to get seals off the ice. Once the iceberg is broken they catch the seals in water. Orcas can get up to around 30 feet long. But what’s remarkable is they’re intelligent to realize humans are not food or a threat. Hundreds of years ago orcas used to hunt wales alongside fishermen
@@Mae-hx2ml For sure. They turn their nose up at our livers. Like a French chef. Of course we have small livers compared to what’s out there in the ocean.
@@strongdelusion9442 I first thought you were making a joke :D then i went on your channel Sad how people are so ignorant towards all the intelectuals from hundreds of years ago that were smarter than ppl like you will ever be combined. For me it is hard to believe anyone could think like that, if you had at least 4 years of school education. I honestly wish you the best luck to find a way out of your prison. It is just sad. Critical thinking is good but ignorance towards science is not.
@@strongdelusion9442 To believe is not the same as to know. I know and you believe. Everyone is free to believe ... until you disrispect others and are ignorant towards others. I strongly believe Jesus crys up there about how ignorant his followers are towards others and how disrespectful towards men that used all their lives towards truth. You are the one not following the path towards truth.
Keep in mind that the average weight of a male Orca is 3 tons - 6,000 lbs while a great white average weight is 1 ton, 1,000 lbs. Orca's are 3 times the size of a great white shark so the sharks want to avoid Orcas as they'll get crushed every time. Lol.
Yes that's about right...3xs the weight of gwsharks...and brains over 20xs heavier also....sharks stand no chance against orca...it's kind of like bears vs wolves...lions vs hyenas...hippos vs crocodiles.....there's a clear and consistent winner....orca all day everyday for thousands of years
I've only ever seen two episodes of this creator's content. Based on the haters with no life of their own, I'm liking this video, probably subscribing, and wishing them their screens break twice a year.
@@KPassionate Wow the pure power, just the pure power and the intellect to use it. i'm not sure how it has happened but over the millennia these things have made the decision...repeatedly… not to kill us when it would be so so easy. I'm sure our bodies have plenty of nutrients they can use and yet they seem to be making a clear self-aware purposeful decision...species wide. When I say “species wide” that sounds like instinct or programming or evolution or whatever but when you add in the playfulness and the curiosity it comes right back down to self-aware creatures that are intelligent and are probably reaching out and I know that sounds like so much touchy-feely earth mother Moonbeam hokeyness 😉 but practically speaking I struggle to come up with another answer. We are searching for extraterrestrial life by looking up I think maybe we should be looking at these creatures right here. I truly believe this might be “first” contact as it were. All this time all this reaching out by these animals and not one human killing not one in the wild? Something good is up here and perhaps what it is is that humankind is finally reached a place where we can see something like these amazing creatures and instead of trying to figure out how they can benefit us we are reaching back and enjoying their beauty. can we all just agree not to screw this up?
Incredible video! Both scientific and entertaining! No hype, no filler, LOVE IT!! How in the world did Orcas discover Tonic Immobilisation? I know they are incredibly intelligent and teach each other, but that is mind boggling.... Subscribed and looking forward to more!!!
This is just a guess, but I'm betting one or two of them found out by accident, and passed it along to the rest of the pod. Like you said, they're extremely intelligent, so communicating the idea isn't the strange part to me. It's how they discovered it in the first place. Best guess, for me, is happy accident. (or Un-happy accident, if you're a Great White shark).
KP your content is exemplary, I learned something new from this video. Didn't know that Orcas range to the Antarctic Ocean, that means that the Leopard Seal is not the apex predator of it's domain.
Wolves in Alaska are preying on otters, Galveston Texas (basically Houston) has an orca pod. And the orcas have sank 2 boats (almost 3) that belong to the same company (Gladys pod, 5 sail boats sank and 3 fishing boats so far) in Spain
Orcas may be higher than Leopard Seals on the food chain, but even so, they prefer to eat less aggressive seals like Weddell Seals when given the chance. David Attenborough documented this on an episode of the "frozen planet" series on BBC Earth; when pods of Orcas did their wave-inducing technique to break up ice floes, the Orcas would spyhop to see what kind of seal it was, and if they find certain species that are aggressive and likely to try to bite towards their eyes or mouth, they'd abandon the hunt and look for easier prey.
@ryans8081 any predator will weigh the risk on prey but leopard seals are on the menu too. I saw a documentary showing leopard shaking the spot when a pod of orcas rolled in.
We're typically seen as apex predators yet there have been plenty of cases of humans being eaten by animals so by that logic, we shouldn't be considered apex predators either
I recently heard about this from my son, when I saw the title of your post I knew I had to watch it. Excellent concise and informative information, thank you
When we lived by the Whangārei Harbour in NZ , we knew when the Orcas were in the harbour . All the stingrays were up in the shallows in the hundreds , all trying to avoid becoming Orca snacks ! Thinking about the shark viewing trips . If they were using burley and feeding the sharks to attract them to the one location , when normally they would be spread out , it would have made the Orcas job locating them much easier . Both are amazing animals that’s for sure .
First time here to your channel in which I stumbled on accidently. Great video, instruction and commentary by you KPassionate! I learned a lot and it made me quite interested now in these underwater scenarios. Thank you!
My new favourite channel. i love this, the different types of Orca pods, which i didnt know until today, the richness and size of the liver, the techniques used to flip it, i knew about the catatonic state, but didnt know about the echolocation of said liver, or that the sharks actually ran away, leaving shark spotting companies bust, its like ive learned a bunch of stuff illl never forget in like 2 minutes
@0:29 If you factor in the kinetic energy of its weight and speed it would be like a large truck smashing into a car…3-5 tons or 6-10 thousand pounds for large females, males up to 16,000 pounds. They can swim up to 30mph so that was like a large truck running a stop light and T boning a 3,500 lb sedan
Well because you are a below average intelligent person it seems..... falling for a clickbait video...No Orca can challenge a full grown great white shark. This is a baby shark or even a dolphin in the other side of the video. Has been debunked many times why are we still seeing this garbage
One of my 7 year old kids loves orcas. He will love this video! (We also live up in the PNW, and his favorite vacation so far was when we went whale watching. He also plans to be a marine biologist when he grows up.)
Thanks KP, another informative video. It's amazing they use tonic immobility on the sharks, which look tiny in comparison to orcas. What causes doral fins to collapse?
There is likely a genetic variable involved in dorsal fin collapse. It is a piece of dense, fibrous connective tissue, with no bone, cartilage, or muscle to hold them up so if it is slightly weaker it has a stronger chance of collapse. Doesn’t bother the animal typically.
Nope. That is a lie that is perpetrated by the animal rights extremists. It is more common in captivity. Possibly due to the genetic factor but also because the animals spend more time at the surface. It is not a sign of health.
Man.. people think sharks are terrifying. They ain't got nothing on Killer whales. Smart, powerful, and swift. I am not kidding. Terrifying. These are the true alphas of the ocean.
I agree, Orcas are much, much more powerful killers, but I think the sharks' reputation comes from those black, lifeless eyes, like a doll's eyes, their visible teeth, and seemingly mindless drive to eat living things.
@@ryaniam22 I was in the Coast Guard when we saw a group of Orcas attacking a Sperm Whale. It is that pod (group) nature that makes them boss. One on one the Sperm Whale is so massive and the largest toothed whale. They do not hunt in a predatory way, usually, although they are predators. And Orcas are large members of the dolphin families. So no whale is safe from a pod of Orcas....fortunately, Sperms and Orcas avoid each other typically. There is a group of Orcas that prey on Sperm Whales. They surround them and attack...understand that it is mostly the females and juveniles, they will avoid the larger males (known as Bulls). This video explains it. I have seen other videos that hype Sperm Whales as Orca killers but that is not the truth. Orcas pursue them...they usually avoid the big ones that would present any issue: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-W52IPJItX28.html
Sharks disappearing out of fear for the orcas. I live in the “Shark Attack Capital of the World” so can you play audio of an orca here to keep the sharks away? Just saying.
FYI : it is indeed known that the great white shark has only 1 predator which is the orca, but only before reaching maturity. The problem here, is that the shark's body reaches maturity after a minimum of 2 decades, which is why most of the great white sharks that get hunted by orcas feel like easy prey. Once a great white shark reaches maturity, the body becomes huge (5 meters minimum) while the sharks that have been attacked by orcas are about 2.5 meters or 3.5 meters at best. An experiment was conducted recently when the scientists displayed the sound made by orcas that have been known to feed on great white sharks on an area full of great white sharks. Most of them ran away, but not all of them. The great white sharks that didn't react to the orcas sound were 4.5 meters minimum. ( 3 of them, one said to be 5.3 meters) It means that older great white sharks are not food for orcas, even if it means that they have a bigger liver due to having bigger bodies. Orcas are like tigers, they feed on what is easy for them to kill. They will never go 1 on 1 against a 5 meters great white shark, it would be too dangerous because the mass is definitely not the same as a 2.5 meters
Orcas are not the only known predator of great white sharks. Other great white sharks have been known to prey on great white sharks. In fact this is likely more common than orca predation on them. Its true however that there are no recorded orca predations on a fully grown adult female great white. These are well known at the Farallon Islands, yet the famous Farallon incident involved a small young great white of ten ft or so. Not one of the mature females that swim in the waters there.
The ones in Texas and the Northern Gulf of Mexico are generally considered "transboundary" because it is outside their usual range. Previous genetic analysis of orcas in the Gulf of Mexico (albeit from a single sample) found that they are most likely Antarctic ecotypes! You can read more about them in the paper from NOAA below. [1] media.fisheries.noaa.gov/2021-07/f2020_AtlGmexSARs_GmexKiller.pdf?null
I wouldn't put much weight on the one and only sample showing genetic affinity to an Antarctic ecotype. Isolated groups can drift in all kinds of directions genetically, and wider sampling of both the Antarctic and Gulf of Mexico animals, as well as other groups might show a quite different pattern. Consider how those "find your genetic ancestry" companies were telling people of east Asian ancestry that they had native American ancestry, because they had a larger database of native American genotypes than Chinese, Japanese, Korean, etc. Ditto for people of central and north Asian ancestry.
I knew of this behavior, but only from you actually. Meanwhile again I am left with the impression that your channel needs to grow, and grow quickly because your content is so unique, interesting, and relevant. My option, but hopefully others share it. Beyond this channel alone I think you could do any documentary series regarding our eco-systems. Water or non-water really. But preferably ocean related for me.
Hi KP! This is totally unrelated to the video but I’ve been wondering about your thoughts on farming kelp to combat climate change and how sea otters could fit into this.
I love the idea of kelp farming and sea otter reintroductions to help stabilize kelp forests. A really great organization to support is the Elakha Alliance, an organization of indigenous leaders, marine biologists, and aquariums dedicated to reintroducing sea otters into Oregon. I've done two charity fundraisers for them as well as a few videos on their efforts. www.elakhaalliance.org/
It isn't as common in the wild but it does happen. Their dorsal fins are made of dense, fibrous connective tissue, with no bone, cartilage, or muscle to hold them up. We don't 100% know why dorsal fins collapse but there is a lot of evidence that it is genetic. In marine parks, the orcas spend more time near the surface and in shallower water where gravity probably has an impact. But they are all also pretty closely related so genetics could be a factor there as well. Ultimately, collapsed dorsal fins aren't an indicator of health or wellbeing.
@@KPassionate Thank you for the detailed reply. I think I got the idea from the movie Blackfish and never thought to search any deeper. Apart from your videos, any good book(s) on orcas you would recommend to learn more about these beautiful animals ?
A really great, but sad, book is called Into Great Silence by Eva Saulitis. It is about the AT1 transient orcas who are a small, isolated population found only in Alaska’s Prince William Sound and the nearby Kenai Fjords region. They are genetically and acoustically unique-they have no connections to other transient killer whale populations and their calls are unlike any others’. Unfortunately, they were devastated by the Exxon Valdez oil spill and only 7 survived. Another good book is Spirits of the Coast by Martha Black B. which talks a lot about how important orcas are to indigenous cultures.
@@KPassionate More thanks. Into Great Silence is the one book I picked and bought by myself on orcas. Glad to see it's also an expert's choice. Now I need to actually read it. So many books, so little time. I'll order the other one shortly. I'm quite glad I found your channel. Looks like I'm going to learn a lot thanks to you.
It sounds so wierd, shark has way more meat on than just liver. It should be all good eating, right? Edit I did post before the final bit, yeah, makes sense to eat the best bit and chuck the package.
Holy smokes! You did a great job explaining science in layperson's format. I'm a 35 year diver and a Environmental Science Guy. Nice work. I learned alot. Looking forward to more. Did you publish anything thanks
Thank you, I'm glad you enjoyed it! I have not published any peer-reviewed papers myself, but I have been a part of several. My favorite was the first ever study on the metabolism of juvenile walruses. I'll link a video from the head researcher below. You can see me working with one of the walruses at the 5 : 37 mark. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-wN1sUCxtsAw.html
@@KPassionate copy that. Will do. I look forward to studying your work... gonna have to buy some wildlife biology texts to get up to speed. Obliged. Give me something to study.
@@KPassionate sorry to respond twice. I took a class at UW ; Modeling of Marine Fisheries. Mostly math that the Brits had gathered data from since WWI. Off Nova Scotia. I'm sure you know better than I. I was trying to get a job counting fish for the gov up in the Bering straits. Didn't work out. But I studied the... ... Sea lion consumption of Pollock. Orders of magnitude greater mass, yet animals were effectively malnutritious. ... anyway my brain has to remember old data. I look forward to the Walrus vid and more. Good night
Sub'd. That was a great video. Well researched, explained and with the perfect amount of video clips (although I would have liked to see more orcas attacking great whites - their attack techniques are fascinating to watch)
i love ur orca videos sm. i love orcas in general. is it obvious? i dont think it is. new subscriber i hope there will be more orca videos in the future....😊
