Northwest Dive Club

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/l ... cation=rss
I hope they don't develop a taste for divers!

Bully Orcas???? I mean this doesnt seem to be instigated by the need to eat as they just wandered off after the assault. Another news story said that they may have spotted the lead orca wearing a blue bandana which tells me that these might be gangsters and that was the aquatic version of a drive by.

"Hughes said he positioned the boat near the gray whale to deter another attack".

How did I know there was going to be some statement like this in the article. There's always at least one out there that has to save nature from nature.

This guy is a hero... sarcasm off.

Someone ought to give him a ticket for harassing the Orcas. Maybe they will. It would sure be a waste to kill a gray whale, and then miss dinner.

For a boat full of a certain kind of nature lover, I'm wondering how it felt to see this in person. Its just tough for some folks to understand that the food chain doesn't end at safeway. Those whales are gonna eat something today, nothing much dies of old age in the sea. It's not exactly the way Walt Disney would have portrayed Orca supper (picture mother Orca in an apron slaving over a hot stove at the bottom of the sea).

I'm not an Orca expert, nor do I play one on TV, but I've heard enough anecdotal stories of them taking Gray Whale calves and only eating the tongue to know that there's more to this than I have any clue about.

Perhaps Gray Whale tastes like crap and only the tongue is worth eating? Perhaps humans aren't the only mammals with taste preferences? Sushi, anyone?

Anyway, my point is that there is a TON about these (and lots of other) animals that we do not understand, and anthropomorphizing them doesn't help that understanding.

You know many of us are going to eat a bit of that whale in a year or two come crab season.....

Ah yes the circle of life. I personally like my gray whale in crab format.

they should have jumped in the water to help save the poor whale lol

Huh- the day before this attack, Phil Jenson of Diver's Dream Charters, saw a pod of Orcas playing with a Steller's Sea Lion they had caught up in Rosario Straight> I wonder if it was the same pod?

Tom Nic wrote: Perhaps Gray Whale tastes like crap and only the tongue is worth eating? Perhaps humans aren't the only mammals with taste preferences? Sushi, anyone?

Maybe the grey whale was a snitch?

Maybe those transients were visiting from Australia....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killer_wha ... _Australia

Today's Skagit Valley Herald has an article Headlined "Dead whales wash up on beaches". In the article they mention that there have been 4 reported attacks on gray whales since March 22. It was unknown if the attacks were related to the dead whales. It noted that between 3 to 10 whales wash up on shore annually.

Nature At Work

Not only there. In our subdivision my neighbor just lost one of his chickens to a raven. Small chickens, a bit bigger raven, a lot more aggressive raven, dead chicken. Guess we'll have them swarming now that one has found the chickens.

Every once in awhile there is a complaint when someone who doesn't understand sees a wolf or bear take a moose, or a hunter take an animal. On well, guess most people think the way they live is the only way and should be ever unchanging.

ArcticDiver wrote:Nature At Work

Not only there. In our subdivision my neighbor just lost one of his chickens to a raven. Small chickens, a bit bigger raven, a lot more aggressive raven, dead chicken. Guess we'll have them swarming now that one has found the chickens.

Every once in awhile there is a complaint when someone who doesn't understand sees a wolf or bear take a moose, or a hunter take an animal. On well, guess most people think the way they live is the only way and should be ever unchanging.

I certainly understand the food chain and such but my only noggin scratcher was that they just roughed it up and left.

Norris wrote:I certainly understand the food chain and such but my only noggin scratcher was that they just roughed it up and left.

Maybe the whale held it's own and the orcas moved on when they realized it was too risky/difficult an endeavor. Or maybe they were just taking advantage of the opportunity for a work-out. Hunting practice.

I'm fascinated by predation. It's not at all simple. The typical predator puts its life on the line whenever it goes after prey. The risk of injury and energy consumption are extremely high in many cases. You rarely see overfed predators (in a natural environment), but you often find starving ones. I don't know much about marine predators, but among predatory mammals and birds the mortality rates are typically much higher than for prey species (in my studies at least). They lead a very tough existence and it bothers me when I see humans taking actions to intentionally rob a predator of an earned meal, leaving the predator without nourishment and in a compromised physical state that makes it less likely to catch it's next meal, more susceptible to disease, and increasingly desperate. The desperation will lead to greater risk-taking (like attacking prey that is too large and powerful) that more often than not leads to more failure, further weakening, and eventually death.

-Ben

airsix wrote:

Norris wrote:I certainly understand the food chain and such but my only noggin scratcher was that they just roughed it up and left.

Maybe the whale held it's own and the orcas moved on when they realized it was too risky/difficult an endeavor. Or maybe they were just taking advantage of the opportunity for a work-out. Hunting practice.

I'm fascinated by predation. It's not at all simple. The typical predator puts its life on the line whenever it goes after prey. The risk of injury and energy consumption are extremely high in many cases. You rarely see overfed predators (in a natural environment), but you often find starving ones. I don't know much about marine predators, but among predatory mammals and birds the mortality rates are typically much higher than for prey species (in my studies at least). They lead a very tough existence and it bothers me when I see humans taking actions to intentionally rob a predator of an earned meal, leaving the predator without nourishment and in a compromised physical state that makes it less likely to catch it's next meal, more susceptible to disease, and increasingly desperate. The desperation will lead to greater risk-taking (like attacking prey that is too large and powerful) that more often than not leads to more failure, further weakening, and eventually death.

-Ben

Ben,
I completely agree with you and this is a great post. When reading stories of people getting in the way of nature and its progression/survival I also get a little miffed. Even in this particular story where the people felt as though they were heros, I on the other hand stamp them ignorant. Thanks for sharing.

Thanks, Norris. I must confess that I'm prejudiced though. If an orca attacks a whale I tell myself to accept it as part of nature's clockwork. If the Yushin Maru attacks a whale I'm a bit more critical.

But whales and dolphins bombed Hiroshima!! :angry:

Old Nubbins wrote:But whales and dolphins bombed Hiroshima!! :angry:

I love South Park. I admit it, I'm a 12 year old.

Old Nubbins wrote:But whales and dolphins bombed Hiroshima!! :angry:

Nooo.... You gotta watch it to the end. It was Cow and Chicken.

This reminds me of the Planet Earth series, when a great white was attacking a seal and people moved in to save the seal, probably because it was cute. So the seal can attack, kill and eat fish, but the shark can't attack, kill and eat the seal?


I was rooting for the shark......

F*&% YOU DOLPHIIIIIINE!!!

Fishstiq wrote:This reminds me of the Planet Earth series, when a great white was attacking a seal and people moved in to save the seal, probably because it was cute. So the seal can attack, kill and eat fish, but the shark can't attack, kill and eat the seal?


I was rooting for the shark......

It's like that Mitsubishi ad a few years back that said something like "Is the only difference between a cute lovable squirrel and a rat that bushy tail? You bet'ya."
Take cats for example. They are ruthless killing machines! But they're cute so we give them a pass and pretend they're Disney cartoon characters. Same goes for orcas and other porpoises, and anything else that's cute, fuzzy, or has big eyes.

WASP7000 wrote:F*&% YOU DOLPHIIIIIINE!!!

F*&% YOU Cow... F*&% YOU Chicken.

The only better episode I have seen is the one where KFC gets turned into a legal pot store. Watching Stans dad use his cancer ridden balls to hop around town was the funniest thing I remember seeing in a long time.

Norris wrote:

ArcticDiver wrote:Nature At Work

Not only there. In our subdivision my neighbor just lost one of his chickens to a raven. Small chickens, a bit bigger raven, a lot more aggressive raven, dead chicken. Guess we'll have them swarming now that one has found the chickens.

Every once in awhile there is a complaint when someone who doesn't understand sees a wolf or bear take a moose, or a hunter take an animal. On well, guess most people think the way they live is the only way and should be ever unchanging.

I certainly understand the food chain and such but my only noggin scratcher was that they just roughed it up and left.

From my experience a certain percentage of all predators kill for fun; or sport if you will. I've seen wolves kill, eat a token amount of the animal and leave to kill another. Then there is the education process. For example: There was a bear that came to my house with its' cub. It showed the cub how to break in a shed. Then it sat there, even defecated while it was watching, and made sure the cub had learned its' lesson.

Sometimes, when I've been watching predators I think they are just having a ball exercising their muscles and brains and proving to themselves and anything else watching that they are something to be reckoned with. Or, maybe it just feels good. Something like when we run, lift weights, or have a nice bike ride.

I'm sure most folks have seen the TV shows where an Orca plays with a seal after catching it. If one watches neighborhood cats you will see them kill song birds. In fact, most birders I know claim domestic cats are The biggest cause of song bird loss.

I remember a few years ago when there was a big uproar about what we were doing to reduce wolf and bear predation on moose. One person sent in a suggestion that we "...just feed them beef. That way no animals have to die". Uh Huh!

Some people also don't understand the reality that if you tire a fish or an animal too much whether you, or some other predator, lets it loose or not it is essentially dead. At that point its' ability to hunt to obtain mandatory calories is so reduced it will either die from stress, or become prey for another.

Yep, I suspect that all predators relate to other animals in much the same way humans do; with one exception. They don't have the veneer of civilization that produces fuzzy minded thinking.