Orcas Kill, But Not Just for Food | Bad Natured | BBC Earth

often when we're filming our mammal cousins it's very tempting to impose our own human anthropocentric values on their actions and that is i think a mistake probably the most interesting example of this i've seen has been working with orca sometimes known as killer whale on a beach in patagonia at exactly the right time of the right tide a pod of orca will surge up onto the sands to snatch seal pups and to drag them back down into the surf where they feed on them we waited for five days to see this hunkered down low against you know freezing patagonian winds trying to make as little an impression as possible on the seal pups that were playing around in the surf and finally uh the pod approached they came up and one animal surged up and onto the sands itself to snatch an animal and drag it back down into the water it's an incredible thing to see you know orca could weigh eight or nine tons and to risk beaching themselves to find a meal you know that is a really heavy investment of energy and of serious risk to themselves as well but the next bit was the the part of the whole scenario that took us by surprise so once they had this tiny pup in the sea instead of just finishing off in a heartbeat as they surely could have done they seemed to to play with it to toy with it to go round and round it in circles tossing it out the water with their tails and not going in for the final killer bite well this wasn't an adult fur seal it was a small animal that seriously couldn't have done them any damage and then it got even weirder because we found on that same beach several carcasses of pups which had been taken by orca they had very definitive bite marks from the orchard on them and they had been killed but not eaten otherwise the carcass was completely perfect why would any animal go to that degree of effort and risk and then not eat it didn't make any sense to us perhaps the answer lay in a different filming trip also with orca but in british columbia my team and i had been lucky enough to happen upon a pod of orca that were socializing and we went out in our sea kayaks and paddle alongside them the orca were leaping out of the water breaching coming alongside me and just rolling onto their side so they could look up at me as they came past it was truly breathtaking but then they went from this this playful super-sized dolphin which is essentially what they are into full-on predatory mode and i've never seen an animal switch as fast as this ever they'd encountered a fully grown male stellars sea lion which is three quarters of a ton 750 kilos of flashing teeth a serious predator in its own right and the pod of orca cornered it into a bay so we got out of our kayaks and got onto shore and we came right up close to see the whole breathtaking spectacle play out they took it down by breaching up and landing on top of it by slapping it with their tails and just generally tiring the animal out you know it was outgunned outnumbered outweighed and it simply had no chance although it kept trying to make a run for the uh for the kelp beds where the orca wouldn't follow watching this happen it took a long long time and you could see it getting more and more tired more and more worn out and you know you feel for them everyone's seen sea lions and they have these great big dark eyes they really pull on your heartstrings because they have it would appear so many similarities to us as human beings certainly are they do share a common ancestor with us but then finally when the animal was no longer a threat when it was so tired and so beaten that it couldn't fight back then they brought in their youngsters they brought in their calves they were quite young animals but they were clearly being taught by their parents how to hunt replicating their parents maneuvers they were also breaching up out of the water and tail slapping on the stellar sea lion and this went on for it for a good while you can see that it was an instructional process they were using the stellar sea lion as a teaching aid and that was pretty uncomfortable to watch it would appear to us to be incredibly cruel but the next bit was the the bit that just took it to a whole different level because once all of that was finished once the the lesson was over rather than coming in and finishing off the seller sea lion they all turned on some unseen unheard signal and just swam off to sea and left it they didn't eat a single mouthful of that stellar sea lion and we just couldn't understand why but it seems that orca are one of the animals that indulge in what is known as surplus killing that is killing that is not designed to be for food kind of seems that they compartmentalize their lives so if they're traveling they're traveling they're socializing they're socializing if they're hunting that's what they're doing and likewise if they're teaching and learning well they don't play with their food it's really tough for you as an observer to see an animal going through so much stress and pain and overwhelming exertion and then for it not even to result in you know precious calories for the orca it seems so cruel but then surely we as human beings are the worst culprit of that there is no other animal that will that will engage with it and kill potential food but then not eat it and just kill it for sport in that surely we human beings are the master [Music] [Music] you

Channel: BBC Earth

Views: 1,231,627

Keywords: bbc documentary, bbc, bbcearth, bbc earth, Nature, Wildlife, Animals, Adventure, Orca, Killer Whale, Stellar Sea Lion, Fur Seal, Steve Backshall, BBC Earth, Planet Earth, Environment, Vancouver, Canada, Chile, Photography, British Columbia, animal hunt

Id: 3f-FsAUcqMs

Length: 6min 24sec (384 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 19 2022