[HN Gopher] Killer whales wreck boat in latest attack off Spain
___________________________________________________________________
Killer whales wreck boat in latest attack off Spain
Author : TheAlchemist
Score : 161 points
Date : 2023-05-26 10:27 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.reuters.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.reuters.com)
| AHOHA wrote:
| Orcas don't eat humans, we are too bony for their taste, they
| also hunt in groups, and it seems we are not worth that
| coordination either, especially they follow their mother's diet.
| So why the sudden attacks even though they know it's for humans?
| No idea, but I'm sure they are either fed up with us or trying to
| hint something else.. or maybe as others suggested, some
| substance is the reason.
| sethammons wrote:
| While orca attacks on humans are practically unheard of outside
| of aquariums, I've never heard anything about humans being too
| bony.
|
| Orcas eat moose and they are more bony than us I think.
| AHOHA wrote:
| I remember I read it before but I can't find the source, will
| update this comment if I find it. Keep in mind, Orcas don't
| kill us either, not just as a food
|
| >"They're killing the porpoise, it's already dead or dying.
| And with one bite they can eat the whole thing. Yet these
| whales just don't see these porpoise as prey. And I think
| it's the exact same thing with humans--they don't see humans
| as prey. Thank goodness, they don't see humans as play
| toys."(1)
|
| Sharks on the other hand, mostly they don't eat the humans
| they kill, they just kill and probably realize we don't taste
| that good after the first bite, but unlike Orcas, they are
| not as intelligent and/or able to teach and pass this info to
| their kids.
|
| (1) https://www.newsweek.com/there-no-records-orca-ever-
| killing-...
| 11235813213455 wrote:
| also because white sharks visions is not as good as orcas
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| Orcas are some of the smartest creatures around, it is
| entirely possible that they can see the connection between
| humans and ships and realise there is something going on
| echelon wrote:
| Absence of evidence does not mean evidence of absence.
|
| They attack Inuit hunters:
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/TerrifyingAsFuck/comments/13lji7w/a...
|
| They investigate dogs as potential prey:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8V97_DKfhw
|
| There's ample evidence that they eat moose and deer. (Videos of
| this can be graphic. There's no hunting, but video of corpses
| that clearly indicate predation.)
|
| I wouldn't rule it out as a possibility.
| el_don_almighty wrote:
| I, for one, welcome our new Orca overlords and look forward to
| working with them.
| RadixDLT wrote:
| the whales has had enough
| local_crmdgeon wrote:
| That's awesome. Good for them.
| boffinAudio wrote:
| I'm really curious about what techniques can be used to fight
| back against these attacks, preferably non-lethal .. has anyone
| tried blasting them with sound, or maybe some other technique to
| get them to back off?
|
| I mean, what about feeding them a few snacks - can they be bought
| off?
|
| Seems to me a daring sailor might ought to find the answers to
| these questions ..
| L_226 wrote:
| > has anyone tried blasting them with sound
|
| Everything in the ocean is getting blasted by our human sound.
| Shipping, sonar, drilling - none of this ever stops and I would
| not be surprised if the Orcas have had enough.
| LgWoodenBadger wrote:
| Well whatever you do, don't try snacks with dolphins. The
| federal penalties in the US are severe.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| it's illegal to give snacks to dolphins? Or to snack on
| dolphins?
| peterjancelis wrote:
| The official recommendations to sailors is: Shut off the
| engine, take down the sails, make no sound, wait.
|
| What sailors will admit they do but not tell anyone: Dump a bit
| of diesel or petrol in the water around the boat to scare away
| the orcas.
|
| There are also some new gadgets available to make high pitched
| sounds that humans can't hear but scare away orcas (and
| dolphins, unfortunately) but no idea if they work well.
| londons_explore wrote:
| > What sailors will admit they do but not tell anyone: Dump a
| bit of diesel or petrol in the water around the boat to scare
| away the orcas
|
| Pumping bilge water into the sea makes them go away real
| quick. It's obviously illegal, but frequently done.
| AHOHA wrote:
| What if.. that's the reason why they are attacking?
| proto_lambda wrote:
| > has anyone tried blasting them with sound
|
| That's likely why they're attacking boats in the first place.
| olliecornelia wrote:
| They're about to enter the "find out" phase.
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| Or we are.
| cromulent wrote:
| There has been discussion about the rudder targeting behaviour
| over recent years being one of the latest adolescent fads.
|
| https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/attacking-boat...
| newqer wrote:
| All fun and games until a 4000Kg Orca is joining the game.
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| If they weren't 4 tonne sea-dwelling highly social apex
| predators which terrify sharks they'd probably make quite good
| pets.
| hidden80 wrote:
| What's communication like between orcas and dolphins, and even...
| whales? Could this behavior be learned by, say, blue whales?
| Dobbs wrote:
| Orcas are dolphins. Do you mean bottle nose dolphins?
| bmitc wrote:
| Orcas are both dolphins and whales. I think it's pretty clear
| that the commenter meant _other_ dolphins and whales.
| hidden80 wrote:
| I think so. You just reminded me that orcas are dolphins, but
| I'm more curious about the potentially devastating effect of
| a blue whale exhibiting this sort of "aggression".
| z3phyr wrote:
| Blue whales are usually loners and thus not capable of
| planning and inflicting damage like a pack of sea wolves.
|
| Blue whales are usually also very calm and do not have
| teeth (They can still be aggressive in defending themselves
| or their calves against orcas, who do sometimes hunt Blue
| whales)
| bmitc wrote:
| Fish-eating orcas have been observed communicating to dolphins
| in a way different from their normal orca dialects.
|
| The transient subtype of orcas eat dolphins and whales though,
| so I doubt there's much fraternization there. Humpback whales
| have been observed interrupting orca attacks on other humpback
| whales and even otber species.
| pvaldes wrote:
| They finally discovered that boats may contain a layer of yummy
| immigrants (or delicious drug packets?)
| Obscurity4340 wrote:
| Do orcas like drugs? I feel like cocaine or methamphetamine
| would be barrels of fun for them
| pvaldes wrote:
| ... Aaand here comes the plot twist in this thread!:
|
| https://www.euronews.com/2022/02/11/spanish-police-bust-
| drug...
|
| I bet that you didn't see it coming. Me neither ;-)
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| We already tried that with bears!
| 11235813213455 wrote:
| or a fishing boat with the tunas they couldn't find
| mxuribe wrote:
| So, it has begun! Soon the dolphins will fly off into space...and
| then, we'll be in quite the pickle as the rest of the plan
| deploys. ;-)
| LesZedCB wrote:
| eh the highway probably has high utility value. just make it
| quick and painless.
| belter wrote:
| Many past threads but these two seem the ones with most comments
|
| "Orcas are breaking rudders off boats in Europe" -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32593799
|
| "Orcas have learned how to drown great white sharks" -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15723393
| speed_spread wrote:
| Reminds me of this Onion classic:
|
| "Dolphins Evolve Opposable Thumb" -
| https://www.theonion.com/dolphins-evolve-opposable-thumbs-18...
| pkphilip wrote:
| Reminds me of the Slashdot meme before the term meme even came
| into existence - Sharks with lasers!
| scrame wrote:
| "meme" was coined by Richard Dawkins in the 70s and sharks with
| lasers is a mid-90s joke from austin powers.
| june_twenty wrote:
| 'internet memes' as we know them today were not around in the
| 80s or 90s
| chrisco255 wrote:
| We had memes in the 90s. But you had to use Photoshop like
| a grownup not some cheap meme generator site. It only cost
| $1200 for a license, and most of us were broke kids (not
| actual grownups) so you had to join a WAREZ chat room on
| AOL and beg for a crack, then you'd spend a week
| downloading it on your 28k modem. Then you'd skillfully
| construct a meme from scratch based on some images you
| collected off personal home pages on Geocities because
| Google image search didn't even exist back then.
| m463 wrote:
| Before that you had to create a chain letter, with a
| strongly worded section to forward the letter to 10
| friends, and detailing the penalties for breaking the
| chain.
| Sharlin wrote:
| It's very appropriate that the concept of "meme" itself is
| an example of memetic drift.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Usenet had what were effectively memes. "Make Money Fast"
| comes to mind.
|
| <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Make_Money_Fast>
|
| Kibo: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Parry>
|
| And elephant jokes.
| fit2rule wrote:
| [dead]
| addaon wrote:
| Other replies have given examples of "current-style" memes
| from the 90s. The term itself was also in popular use, as
| evidenced in e.g. the website memepool.com.
| dkjaudyeqooe wrote:
| They most definitely were, just text based. Pictures took
| too long to download and were reserved for important things
| like porn.
| sokoloff wrote:
| Dancing baby and "All your base are belong to us" are
| definitely from the 90s.
| ChatGTP wrote:
| Is there any chance Orcas might become self-aware and begin to
| interrupt shipping and eventually take over?
|
| Edit: It was a silly joke...I was being ironic. I believe garden
| worms are self-ware.
| rvense wrote:
| There is absolutely no question that they are already self-
| aware.
| chasd00 wrote:
| If they interfere with commerce they'll be killed.
| ben_w wrote:
| You say that, but all they need is to wear a messy blonde wig
| and the British will ask one to be Prime Minister, no matter
| how much they interfere with trade.
|
| And it would almost certainly still be more popular than any
| of the human attempts.
| helsinkiandrew wrote:
| What's alarming is that younger orcas are learning how to do it:
|
| > Two days earlier, a pod of six orcas assailed another sailboat
| navigating the strait. Greg Blackburn, who was aboard the vessel,
| looked on as a mother orca appeared to teach her calf how to
| charge into the rudder. "It was definitely some form of
| education, teaching going on,"
|
| https://www.livescience.com/animals/orcas/orcas-have-sunk-3-...
|
| > Experts suspect that a female orca they call White Gladis
| suffered a "critical moment of agony" -- a collision with a boat
| or entrapment during illegal fishing -- that flipped a behavioral
| switch. "That traumatized orca is the one that started this
| behavior of physical contact with the boat,"
| paradoxyl wrote:
| Alarming? There's 7,000,000,000 humans and only 50,000 orcas
| left. Who's in the wrong here?
| Taywee wrote:
| 8 billion humans as of last November.
| slily wrote:
| What's with the anti-human attitude? Sounds like a lot of the
| commenters here would rather kill 1000 humans (but of course
| not _you_ or your family or your friends, maybe just some
| Spanish fishermen?) than the same number of orcas.
| markhahn wrote:
| you've got it backwards: Earth is not a zero-sum game.
|
| "we'd be better off with fewer than 8G people" is not
| advocating murder, either.
| potatototoo99 wrote:
| The orcas. Humans are the apex predator, the orcas better
| clean their act before we lose our patience.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Have we tried positive intervention? I know it's against marine
| biologists' code of ethics. But if they're intelligent enough
| to mount this response, they might be intelligent enough
| to...erm...reason with? Recondition?
| bobbylarrybobby wrote:
| We do not negotiate with terrorists!
| manojlds wrote:
| Good for them, I guess?
| piatra wrote:
| How long until it's open season on hunting them.
| bmitc wrote:
| This group is critically endangered and is protected by law,
| as they should be.
| francisofascii wrote:
| Agreed, but if an Orca is trying to sink your boat, it
| would be hard sell to say you can't fight back.
| bmitc wrote:
| It's tough. Humans initiated the invasive and agressive
| behavior. Now that orcas have retailiated, for whatever
| reason, it isn't right for humans to act innocent and
| blameless and to want to retaliate back.
|
| Deterrence should be the only goal. Anything more should
| be met with harsh penalties.
| cppenjoyer wrote:
| [flagged]
| pvaldes wrote:
| We don't want to escalate a global war with orcas. Just give
| the seabernard its stupid sardine.
| areoform wrote:
| > How long until it's open season on hunting them.
|
| In 2011, the subgroup had 39 members. Yes, let's go hunt a
| sentient, intelligent species trying to protect themselves
| and their young to extinction; forever losing their
| intelligence and culture.
|
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27770983/
| tgv wrote:
| [flagged]
| multiplegeorges wrote:
| > Literally nothing of value will be lost.
|
| Shockingly small-minded thing to say.
| tgv wrote:
| I knew people were going to react like that, but tell me:
| what value is there in the primitive, inscrutable culture
| of a tiny group? That kind of thing gets lost all the
| time. Every time a school class graduates, their tiny
| culture dissolves.
|
| I'll repeat that I'm against hunting them, but that's
| because they are sentient and intelligent.
| chmod775 wrote:
| I wonder if this is what a hypothetical alien
| civilization may think of us: If we blow it up and build
| a hyperspace bypass through it, nothing of value will be
| lost.
| omniglottal wrote:
| Precisely the same rationale can be applied to you. When
| you figure out why your inscrutable culture has any
| perceptible value, apply that reasoning outside your
| intentionally-narrowed values system. Recognize that the
| culture has not truly dissolved - it's merely your
| recognition thereof which has. What value is there in the
| advanced, inscrutable culture of a large group?
| tgv wrote:
| * So you can't tell.
|
| * Our culture isn't inscrutable. You're part of it. You
| understand it.
|
| * But is it the culture that makes you oppose killing
| people? Or whales? Chickens have no culture, certainly
| not factory farmed ones. Killing them is fine? Pigs?
| Cows? Solitary humans?
| LgWoodenBadger wrote:
| I don't know if GP was serious, but that's the typical
| human (or maybe just US) response to things like shark-
| attacks: kill them all.
|
| It's awful, but I wouldn't be surprised. Even in 2023
| humans are generally awful.
| highstep wrote:
| don't worry, we'll be gone soon and some sort of life on
| earth will go on
| AHOHA wrote:
| I remember seeing a video of a mother whale thanking
| sailors by bringing some food after they freed her kid from
| a fishing net. I believe if we actually start killing those
| intelligent creatures, we will severely off balance the
| ocean!
| neom wrote:
| Some video footage of it:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jwz8FTAgW-M
| victorbstan wrote:
| The animal revolution has begun. Death to humans!
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| About bloody time
| blinding-streak wrote:
| https://archive.ph/nn90e
| honkycat wrote:
| Love all of the empathy and love for these intelligent creatures
| in the comments.
|
| Sadly, humanity continues to over fish and poison their home in
| order to enrich the greedy of this work.
|
| Next time some fuckwad in a suite starts ranting about pronouns
| and religion, picture a baby whale being dragged to it's death by
| a fishing vessel. Picture a fishing vessel dumping massive
| amounts of plastic netting into the ocean. Picture the dead coral
| reefs, the baked dead fields ruined by rising temperatures.
|
| And ask yourself: Why are they talking about pronouns instead of
| something that actually fucking matters?
| AntiRemote wrote:
| [flagged]
| Ccecil wrote:
| Said it years ago in another post when this same thing came up.
|
| Maybe the autorudder is the issue. PWM noise. In the previous
| article there was mention that the boats had autorudders on them.
|
| Perhaps this is happening more because more people are using
| invasive noise producing equipment.
|
| Of course...I am not an Orca researcher, nor am I in Spain. I
| wonder if it should be mentioned to someone official?
| AYBABTME wrote:
| Pretty much all boats have autopilots on them, and for a while.
| Nothing new here.
| Ccecil wrote:
| Do they all have the same kit?
|
| There are a lot of homebrew ones out there using stuff like
| windshield wiper motors hooked to off the shelf control
| circuitry [1]. It "functions" but has anyone looked into the
| effects? Doesn't hurt to see if there is a correlation.
|
| The video below is an example. It also has rudder
| feedback...so that very easily could cause an oscillating
| signal. Which would also vary in pitch as the rudder was hit
| by the Orca.
|
| I know I can hear PWM'ed stepper motors...and many younger
| people complain about them. I wonder what that sounds like to
| an animal which uses sonar and can hear different ranges.
|
| [1] https://youtu.be/-nA6wo9PXls?t=5
| tejtm wrote:
| hmm I wonder if it could be something as simple as a
| "leafblower" effect with the non-analog mechanical seeking.
|
| Testable by decoupling the drive and or damping the rudder.
| Ccecil wrote:
| Can you explain this more? Or link some stuff explaining
| more...would like to understand what you mean exactly.
| pcurve wrote:
| Experts theorize this is a revenge behavior resulting from one
| of the orcas encountering traumatic event with a boat. The
| problem is, other orcas are emulating it.
| amadazia wrote:
| I wonder why intelligent species in the sea are revelling? Could
| it be sonar, shipping noise, food chain disturbance.
|
| We trousered apes are so primitive and utterly dim when it comes
| to interspecies communication.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _We trousered apes are so primitive and utterly dim when it
| comes to interspecies communication_
|
| I know this is a common and cute framing. But it's escapist.
|
| We're the planet's apex species using our unrivaled control to
| make it uninhabitable for other complex life. The Earth may not
| care about the damage we're doing, but the species that are
| dying would prefer not to. There isn't a rebellion they can
| mount against us. Their entire survival depends on our giving a
| shit.
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| It's also completely wrong when you consider the number of
| domesticated animals that need to be communicated with by
| humans on a daily basis. My wife's a horse trainer: she just
| finished doing exactly that a few minutes ago.
| permo-w wrote:
| this is the crux of the matter. as a species we're so careless
| that if this is a warning or revenge for something, we don't
| know what because there are too many options to choose from.
| this whole thread is an illustration of that. "could it be
| noise pollution?". "has an influential orca been hit by a
| rudder?". "perhaps it's overfishing?", etc. even if it's none
| of those things, and this is just a fad, it's a sorry state of
| affairs
| dfc wrote:
| What other animals excel at interspecies communication?
| benbojangles wrote:
| Cocaine Orca?
| areoform wrote:
| Orcas are genuinely amazing creatures. We have observed evidence
| for culture within them, and witnessed them engage in social
| learning behavior identical to humans. So much so that it's
| important to consider their culture when we consider conservation
| w.r.t. orcas,
| https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00063...
|
| One of my favorite examples is that, in the 1980s, an orca
| started wearing a dead salmon on her nose. Others soon followed.
| They copied the pioneer until everyone was doing it. They then
| subsequently got bored, abandoned the trend & forgot about it.
|
| Alder or A99 rediscovered the trend in 2019 and it became cool to
| balance salmon on your nose again,
| https://www.instagram.com/p/CZkhP0fvhXn/
|
| In this case, it's very likely that someone hurt one of them and
| they're now trying to make the world safer for themselves.
| They've figured out a way to deal with the entity they see as a
| threat and they've spread that knowledge.
|
| It's all very human.
|
| I suspect that it might actually be possible to try diplomacy in
| this case. I may be wrong, but I suspect that they could be
| reasoned with. This moment in time could lead to a breakthrough
| in inter-species communication.
| belter wrote:
| Maybe they are trying to warns us about something ?
|
| "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home" - https://memory-
| alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Star_Trek_IV:_The_Voyag...
| moltude wrote:
| What I immediately jump to when reading these stories. The
| movie rates as one of my favorite Star Trek movies because of
| all the "colorful metaphors"
| belter wrote:
| "... Spock says that the probe signifies aliens of great
| intelligence that somehow, are unaware of the signal's
| destructive nature and that he thinks it illogical that the
| probe's intention is hostile. When McCoy asks if this is the
| probe's way of saying hello to the people of the Earth, Spock
| points out that only Human arrogance assumes the message must
| be meant for them..."
|
| "...In the Bounty's lab, Spock discovers that it is in fact a
| whale song, specifically that of the humpback whale. McCoy at
| first wonders who would send a probe across the galaxy to
| speak to whales, but Kirk and Spock recognize that whales
| were on Earth ten million years before Humans. Humpback
| whales, Spock points out, have been extinct since the 21st
| century, and so it is possible an alien intelligence sent the
| probe to establish why they lost contact..."
| belter wrote:
| "Our delivery Yacht had a serious interaction with a large pod
| of Orcas" - https://youtu.be/iEpvQKxz5JU
| nonethewiser wrote:
| > > In this case, it's very likely that someone hurt one of
| them and they're now trying to make the world safer for
| themselves. They've figured out a way to deal with the entity
| they see as a threat and they've spread that knowledge.
|
| Maybe. Or maybe marine biologist Dr. Renaud de Stephanis is
| right and they are playing.
|
| > "From what I'm seeing, it's mainly two of those guys [the
| Gladises] in particular that are just going crazy. They just
| play, play and play. . . . It just seems to be something they
| really like and that's it."
|
| > "I've seen them hunting," the biologist added. "When they
| hunt, you don't hear or see them. They are stealthy, they sneak
| up on their prey. I've seen them attacking sperm whales -
| that's aggressive....but these guys, they are playing."
|
| https://people.com/traumatized-orca-may-have-taught-whales-t...
| bandyaboot wrote:
| Perhaps if we were to approach them while balancing salmon on
| our noses...
| ethbr0 wrote:
| Pretty sure that would result in juvenile orcas rolling their
| eyes and telling us "That's so last year."
| ben_w wrote:
| I love ideas like that, but I'd expect us to learn North
| Sentinelese from passive remote drone observations before we
| can manage a different species.
| blinding-streak wrote:
| Disagree. Animal training and behavior is a vast field of
| research humans have studied for hundreds of years. We're not
| starting from scratch. And we already interact with orcas
| constantly, based on these reports. It would be
| straightforward to experiment.
|
| Interacting in any way with the North Sentinel folks is
| forbidden.
| 2000UltraDeluxe wrote:
| I mean, apart from a few kidnapped ones in the 1800's, few
| Sentinelese have ever interacted with the rest of us.
|
| Human-Orca contact, on the other hand, is relatively
| common.
| RajT88 wrote:
| And the main way the Sentinelese prefer to interact with
| the rest of the world is with hails of arrows.
| ben_w wrote:
| Quite possibly for the same reason as the orcas...
| AlecSchueler wrote:
| So why would we expect to learn to communicate with the
| Sentinelese first, rather than the species we're already
| in contact with?
| bmitc wrote:
| Contact is not the same as communication and
| understanding of language, which is what the original
| commenter was referring to.
| AlecSchueler wrote:
| Yes, but we already communicate with orcas, and with the
| Sentinelese we can't communicate with them because we
| can't contact them. Communication and understanding of
| language are two different things. I have great
| communication with my dog, both ways.
| moffkalast wrote:
| Because every time in history a new group of humans was
| discovered we could eventually communicate, but have so
| far managed to talk to exactly zero fish despite constant
| contact?
| marcosdumay wrote:
| I'm pretty sure the orcas can understand a message of "not
| here" or "not boats like this".
| moffkalast wrote:
| Apparently humans do not understand a message of "stop
| taking our food or the boat gets it".
| saltwatercowboy wrote:
| I don't know. I'm very much waiting for the Cetacean
| Translation Initiative (CETI) to release their first set of
| results.
| boffinAudio wrote:
| You reminded me of this absolutely adorable story of a wild
| dolphin named Dusty going off to find its own fashion flipper
| to wear, having observed a diver lose theirs:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOXZYvDg1ck
|
| Just makes me want to hang out with them so much more .. look
| at Dusty wearing that thing, what a player!
| dylan604 wrote:
| I'm curious what the swimmer is trying to hide from with that
| camo
| bmitc wrote:
| > In this case, it's very likely that someone hurt one of them
| and they're now trying to make the world safer for themselves.
|
| The orcas doing this are tuna eaters, and we are depleting the
| tuna population. Specifically, they eat blue fin tuna migrating
| through the Strait of Gibraltar in the spring and summer.
| They're hungry and don't appreciate the overfishing. This has
| been escalating for a few years now. Reports of boat attacks
| were happening several years ago.
|
| > It's all very human.
|
| They have their own intelligence and culture and behavior, and
| it need not relate to human culture.
|
| Although, I do suspect their raw intelligence to be
| approximately equal to humans.
| narag wrote:
| _The orcas doing this are tuna eaters, and we are depleting
| the tuna population._
|
| Barbate is very close to my hometown. Tuna was captured in
| the area since Roman times:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baelo_Claudia
|
| My father's family used to work in Sancti Petri, a village
| created around the _almadraba_ , then closed half a century
| ago.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almadraba
|
| Why did it close? Competence from japanese factory boats.
| Tuna was captured in deep sea before they coasted north. I
| believe Barbate still has one.
|
| Another explanation in local news is that orcas get mad with
| the sound of motors and propellers. The nearby straight bears
| very heavy traffic.
| [deleted]
| canadianfella wrote:
| [dead]
| twelve40 wrote:
| doing nothing your entire life but killing fish to eat (and
| carrying dead salmon on your nose!) sounds like a massive
| hyperbole for "approximately human-equal intelligence"
| tessierashpool wrote:
| _doing nothing your entire life but killing fish to eat
| (and carrying dead salmon on your nose!) sounds like a
| massive hyperbole for "approximately human-equal
| intelligence"_
|
| nobody suggested that they were intelligent _because_ they
| eat and wear fish.
|
| actual scientific research shows signs of culture,
| intelligence, and social learning, all of which point to
| approximately human-equal intelligence.
| twelve40 wrote:
| ok, can't argue with actual scientific research
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| And what do fishermen do? Are fishermen not human?
| twelve40 wrote:
| Why do you say that? Did i claim that all humans are
| fishermen? No orcas do anything else their entire lives,
| but less than 1% of humans are fishermen (and still
| negligible even if you include all ranching and
| agriculture in modern countries!)
|
| And no, fisherman is not a "species" or a pre-defined
| destiny. Hemingway was a fisherman and a writer. Humans
| have the ability to do other things, even in the same
| lifespan. Sounds like arguing for 2+2=4.
| jasonzemos wrote:
| Doing nothing your entire life but killing grazing animals
| and wearing their fur on your shoulders and teeth around
| your neck is just man a few thousand years removed.
| bmitc wrote:
| We still do that now and even worse. We used to do it for
| pure survival and need. Now we do it for pleasure more
| than anything else.
| 11235813213455 wrote:
| + a lot of pollution
| roflyear wrote:
| Yes, we're much worse towards animals, and really the
| entire ecosystem, then we were even 100 years ago. Pretty
| wild.
| nashashmi wrote:
| An effect of the establishment and growth of communism,
| subsequently its counterpart emergence of capitalism, and
| the growing culture of excess materialism ... called
| wealth.
| jameshart wrote:
| I think you read that history book backwards.
| nashashmi wrote:
| Ok? My research on this is capitalism was never coined
| until Marxism was coined. Marxism is the predecessor to
| communism. Communism was taken up during the Bolshevik
| revolution. Then it was demonized.
| jameshart wrote:
| Capitalism was _happening_ before Marx described it as
| such.
|
| And 'wealth' predates capitalism and mercantilism.
| petre wrote:
| That's probably what orcas think of humans fouling their
| water with oil and smoke leaking vehicles that also harvest
| their food and kill their siblings by dragging nets.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| If I were a long-lived species that had relatively low
| numbers of offspring with an extended maturation time
| spent in social groups...
|
| ... it seems pretty reasonable that a death could trigger
| a lifelong vendetta.
|
| If humans were casually killed by other animals at the
| rate we casually kill even the most intelligent non-human
| species, we'd exterminate that other species. Oh wait, we
| have.
| bmitc wrote:
| I have always wondered why the Southern Resident orcas in
| the Pacific Northwest aren't more skittish of humans. We
| captured them, killing many in the process, back in the
| 1970s. Many local bystanders and observers reported the
| orcas crying and screaming being completely disheartening
| and upsetting.
|
| https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-
| news/environment/the-or...
|
| https://www.timescolonist.com/local-news/50-years-ago-
| seven-...
|
| https://us.whales.org/our-4-goals/end-captivity/the-penn-
| cov...
|
| One of them still lives and has been in a single, tiny
| tank in Florida for five decades, alone for three
| decades. Completely sickening.
| bmitc wrote:
| Is there an actual argument there? What are they supposed
| to do or eat?
|
| Orcas, other than humans, are the most widespread animal.
| They're in practically every ocean and continental coast
| and eat a variety of food. Orcas who concentrate on a
| single or a few species, like salmon, tuna, or rays, do so
| as a strategy. They are huge animals with huge caloric
| needs, so it makes sense to diversify so as to not over
| compete, and thus this makes it possible for different pods
| to live in the same areas.
|
| Humans the world over are starving and yet there is an over
| abundance of food. The U.S. alone wastes 120 billion pounds
| of food every year. Humans have to monitor how much fish we
| eat because we have filled fish with toxins like mercury
| and microplastics. So orcas are the "dumb" ones because
| some eat fish?
| nonethewiser wrote:
| > Is there an actual argument there?
|
| That balancing tuna on your nose doesn't display human
| like intelligence.
| twelve40 wrote:
| > So orcas are the "dumb" ones because some eat fish?
|
| that's a pretty twisted and incorrect reading of what i
| said, they don't have human level of intelligence because
| they _all don 't do anything else singificant their whole
| entire lives but hunt fish_, not because they eat fish.
| giantrobot wrote:
| Orcas tried metallurgy but they can't keep their forges
| lit. They're also not great airline pilots. So they've
| decided for now to stick with fishing.
| [deleted]
| ok_dad wrote:
| I think there are a lot of humans who do nothing
| significant with their lives. Doesn't mean they aren't
| smart or capable.
| Retric wrote:
| I would extend that and say all humans don't do anything
| significant with their lives. It seems rather likely that
| humanity as a whole has had zero impact on an
| overwhelming majority of all life that exists or will
| exist, intelligent or otherwise.
|
| Granted nobody particularly cares about the absolute
| scale but if you're complaining about significance it's
| obviously just personal bias.
| bmitc wrote:
| You didn't respond to my other questions. What are they
| supposed to do and eat, then? What about what you said
| makes them unintelligent?
|
| Edit: Replying to the reply I received here in an edit,
| since the comment is now dead.
|
| I apologize for being confused, because I indeed was. I
| wasn't trying to do anything other than understand you're
| admittedly confusing argument, which is why I asked for
| an elaboration.
|
| > Can you please point me to cultural, scientific,
| technological, architectural, philosophical achievements
| of orcas that are typically associated with human-level
| intellect?
|
| Now we're getting somewhere interesting. :) None of those
| things, aside from maybe culture have anything to do with
| intelligence. Orcas certainly do have culture and do more
| than just eat. They stay with their families their entire
| lives, intelligently breading with other pods (i.e., not
| their relatives), have play, vocalization and by all
| appearances language, and even recreation, such as vising
| massaging pebbles or visiting their favorite areas. The
| have culture, such as play activities and hunting
| techniques, that are passed done from generation to
| generation and are activity taught to fellow pod members.
| There is even a famous example of orcas _teaching and
| training humans_ to hunt whales in a mutually beneficial
| way that allowed the orcas to eat their favorite parts:
| the tongue.
|
| An orca's brain is fascinating. It is much larger than a
| humans. Of course, their bodies are much larger and thus
| need more processing power to handle the larger system,
| but the brain size is certainly a component to their
| intelligence. What's more interesting is that their brain
| exhibits much higher density and complex folding than our
| brain does. Folds in brains increase surface area and are
| thought to correlate strongly with more processing power
| and higher intelligence. We are smoothed brain compared
| to them. Another fascinating thing about their brain is
| that the part of the brain associated with emotional
| intelligence in much larger than humans and other
| primates relative to the rest of the brain. So it stands
| to reason by both brain structure and their behavior that
| orcas are much more emotionally intelligent than humans.
| As a separate fact, orcas are one of only three mammals,
| the other being pilot whales and humans, that undergo
| menopause, an evolutionary adaptation that helps allow
| their matriarchical society to maintain its social
| structure and health.
|
| Science is absolutely clear on this fact: orca brains
| have every indication of processing power that competes
| very seriously with human brains and in some ways out
| competes it. And with every bit of new research that
| comes out, we find out more that points in the positive
| direction of them being even more intelligent than we
| thought. Compared to ancient humans prior to agriculture
| and technology, their hunting techniques absolutely equal
| human techniques. It's possible that they are even more
| coordinated than humans.
|
| Regarding the rest of the stuff you mentioned such as
| scientific, technological, architectural, philosophical
| achievements, none of these things matter for or hardly
| even relate to intelligence. For one, we have no
| understanding nor comprehension of their internal mental
| models and thus cannot comment on their philosophy.
|
| For the rest, I would ask you to consider their
| environment. They live in the ocean and are forced to
| live near the surface due to being air-breathing mammals.
| Not even considering the fact that they lack hands and
| opposable thumbs, their environment makes technological
| progress impossible. There is no way to develop writing
| or printing technology, agriculture, architecture, or
| anything else due to their aquatic environment. As a
| thought experiment, take humans and give them the
| magically ability to live in the ocean permanently with
| the typical human dexterity, hands, and opposable thumbs.
| Writing, printing, recording of any kind would be
| impossible for ancient humans to obtain, thus preventing
| all technological development.
|
| Lastly, one should consider what intelligence actually
| is. Orcas live their lives by eating responsibly and
| healthily, stay with their families, play, communicate,
| and live all without waging war. We humans live our lives
| slaved to our technology and socioeconomic systems with
| vast amounts of self-induced mental and physical health
| problems while trying to obtain some misplaced notion of
| permanence in this universe through AI or space travel,
| all while completely destroying the environment for
| ourselves and every other species. Humans are also some
| of the most if not _the_ most violent species to ever
| exist. Which is more intelligent?
| cutemonster wrote:
| Orcas are amazing, I still see nothing in what you wrote
| that indicates they'd be brighter that say 5 to 7 years
| old kids. Kids have culture too, use tools etc.
|
| Evolution doesn't generally add features that aren't
| needed. Orcas don't have arms, don't build skyscrapers or
| fly to the moon. There's no need to be that bright.
|
| But if you want to believe that they could, if they just
| had had arms, well why not (although I dissent).
|
| > Humans are also some of the most if not the most
| violent species to ever exist. Which is more intelligent?
|
| Those are two different dimensions. Being intelligent
| doesn't mean you're kind hearted or less violent.
| Although it can indeed be simpler to understand others
| (which you can use in evil ways).
| ignoramous wrote:
| > _Orcas live their lives by eating responsibly and
| healthily, stay with their families, play, communicate,
| and live all without waging war. We humans live our lives
| slaved to our technology and socioeconomic systems with
| vast amounts of self-induced mental and physical health
| problems while trying to obtain some misplaced notion of
| permanence in this universe through AI or space travel,
| all while completely destroying the environment for
| ourselves and every other species. Humans are also some
| of the most if not the most violent species to ever
| exist. Which is more intelligent?_
|
| All moot if we are in _The Matrix_ already? If not, _The
| Matrix_ is the end game, anyway? I wouldn 't mind much as
| long as chicken tastes better than fish.
| bnlxbnlx wrote:
| Wow, i wasn't aware that there might be a connection
| between menopause and matriarchal societies--super
| fascinating! Do you have any sources you can recommend
| that offer more information on this?
|
| Also i wasn't aware how much culture and collaboration
| orcas apparently have, thank you for sharing all that!
|
| Edit: also, curious if you are aware of the work of
| marija gimbutas and heide gottner-abendroth on neolithic
| pre-patriarchal Europe (which seems to have been peaceful
| for thousands of years)?
| twelve40 wrote:
| [flagged]
| flangola7 wrote:
| Can you just engage in good faith please? Comments like
| this degrade the overall community and conversation.
| 11235813213455 wrote:
| and pets eat 1/5th of world meat & fish production, just
| leaving this here
| bena wrote:
| Look, if Toonces drove a boat instead of a car, I'm sure
| Free Willy would be fucking his shit up, but as it
| stands, orcas don't know where any of what is caught is
| going. They just know that the boats are stealing their
| food.
| nradov wrote:
| No one is claiming that orcas are dumb or that they
| shouldn't eat fish. But throughout nature when two
| species compete for the same resource there will
| inevitably be conflict. Europeans have been generally
| overfishing for centuries and will need to cut back catch
| quotas to a sustainable level. The Mediterranean once
| teemed with life, now it's rare to see any large fish.
|
| Famines are generally caused by bad governance, not by
| lack of food. We should reduce food waste where practical
| but that won't really help to feed the starving. For
| example, the 1980's Ethiopian famine which triggered
| major international relief efforts was primarily caused
| by a civil war. The opposing sides used hunger as a
| weapon and stole food from civilians. I can eat less tuna
| but that won't solve such problems.
| bmitc wrote:
| > Famines are generally caused by bad governance, not by
| lack of food.
|
| That was primarily my point of calling that out, as it
| points to the lower emotional intelligence of humans.
| [deleted]
| soperj wrote:
| > doing nothing your entire life but killing fish to eat
| (and carrying dead salmon on your nose!) sounds like a
| massive hyperbole for "approximately human-equal
| intelligence"
|
| Most people do less, they don't even kill the meat that
| they eat.
| skyyler wrote:
| Sounds like a pretty relaxed lifestyle that is in harmony
| with nature.
|
| Do they need to be exploiting each other to be smart or
| something?
| bmitc wrote:
| This is a great point that I also called out elsewhere.
| The orca lifestyle, despite their intelligence and their
| physical prowess, really speaks to a certain level of
| social and emotional intelligence that humans don't
| simply possess.
|
| I think it's interesting that orcas and other intelligent
| animals possess an ability to be contented. Humans are
| decidedly discontented and crave.
| markhahn wrote:
| you're overestimating what "intelligence" means, as well as
| what the median human does.
| [deleted]
| spullara wrote:
| Wasn't this in the plot of Avatar: The Way of Water?
| AYBABTME wrote:
| > In this case, it's very likely that someone hurt one of them
| and they're now trying to make the world safer for themselves.
| They've figured out a way to deal with the entity they see as a
| threat and they've spread that knowledge.
|
| They seems to target only sailboats' rudders, which are
| arguably the most innoffensive of boats out there, but also the
| easiest prays. What I heard is that it seems like one orca
| decided it was fun (who actually knows their intent) and then
| the fashion spread.
|
| It seems more likely to me that some kids are having a good
| time messing with sailboats, than some sort of revenge or
| something.
| tessierashpool wrote:
| > one orca decided it was fun (who actually knows their
| intent) and then the fashion spread.
|
| there's also been speculation that an orca discovered the
| method after being injured by a boat.
|
| _Researchers aren't sure why the orcas are going after the
| watercraft. There are two hypotheses, according to Lopez. One
| is that the killer whales have invented a new fad, something
| that subpopulations of these members of the dolphin family
| are known to do. Much as in humans, orca fads are often
| spearheaded by juveniles, Lopez says. Alternatively, the
| attacks may be a response to a bad past experience involving
| a boat._
|
| https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-has-a-
| group-o...
| AYBABTME wrote:
| If it was past experience involving a boat, you'd think
| they'd attack powerboats. I really doubt a sailboat would
| have likely been involved into hurting orcas to the point
| where they would have learned to attack sailboats.
| Sailboats have keels in front of small propellers, and the
| propellers are usually purposefully not "exposed" or the
| first thing to be hit when colliding with an underwater
| object.
|
| On the other hand, power boats have very shallow draft,
| basically no keel, and much larger and exposed propellers.
| And yet, it's sailboats that are attacked.
|
| Hence to me it's quite obvious that the orcas are taking on
| the sailboats because sailboats are easy, slow and
| vulnerable targets. It's more likely that a bunch of young
| orcas are being jerks, like teenage humans are to
| vulnerable people. Also I don't buy that somehow orcas
| would be this pure, unable to do evil, species that is
| merely induced to be angry as a whole group because of the
| big bad humans. If they have a social structure, they have
| members of society that are jerks.
|
| One way or another it's a problem if they target vulnerable
| boats.
| EdwardDiego wrote:
| I'd believe it's a orca street gang.
|
| Not sure if you're familiar with the kea[0], but it's a
| rather intelligent alpine parrot, and very social, and,
| like orca, when one learns something new, the knowledge
| is transferred to its peers quickly.
|
| When I was living in a village in the mountains, groups
| of young male kea would come down to the village to have
| fun and incidentally cause trouble.
|
| E.g., one group would hang out by the public toilets, and
| when people would pull in to use it, the kea gang would
| deflate a car tyre, sometimes two, it felt like a way of
| showing how tough they were, because one kea would remove
| the valve cap, then the other kea (plural) would take
| turns depressing the valve to make that "pfsssh" noise
| for as long as they could handle it, then to a chorus of
| cackles from its peers.
|
| [0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kea
| jna_sh wrote:
| I saw conjecture on twitter (unfortunately I didn't save the
| tweet) that they were targeting rudders because of the
| similarity to tuna fins. They hunt tuna by removing the fins,
| to prevent the fish fleeing, and the tweeter's hypothesis was
| that they are using the sailboats as practice
| danjoredd wrote:
| >I suspect that it might actually be possible to try diplomacy
| in this case
|
| When we learn the language of Killer Whales that can be an
| option. However, there currently isn't a way to communicate
| with them in the same manner humans communicate with other
| humans.
| drewmol wrote:
| I was recently thinking about the potential failure modes of a
| worldwide sailing trip on a 60-80 ft vessel. Marooned by Orcas
| was not on the list... but it is now!
| amelius wrote:
| The problem is that once a whale gets run over by a ship, he/she
| will (somehow) tell the other whales that ships are "bad" and
| must be attacked. Then whales tell eachother that ships must be
| attacked, and this continues even after the original whale that
| got run over by a ship dies.
| [deleted]
| codyb wrote:
| To be fair to the orcas, boats do seem to be awful for them. At
| the Seattle aquarium there's tons of information about how the
| noise from boats makes hunting much more difficult for orca
| pods. This was a sailing vessel but maybe they're unable to
| distinguish? Or maybe it was running it's motor, most sailing
| vessels of sufficient size have on board motors.
| m463 wrote:
| Maybe without a noisy motor it's like a "dead" or "sleeping"
| ship
| lisasays wrote:
| I would put it this way: the "problem" is ships running over
| these poor whales.
|
| Not the whales doing what they've been doing for millions of
| years.
| potatototoo99 wrote:
| That's counter to nature. Does the apex predator care how
| many millions of years the prey species has?
| olalonde wrote:
| Source?
| justanotheratom wrote:
| Why do they hate us?
| pessimizer wrote:
| They must hate our freedom.
| mzs wrote:
| video itself:
| https://www.instagram.com/stories/highlights/182908290341057...
| notyourwork wrote:
| > Login to view this story.
|
| Bummer.
| fileeditview wrote:
| The Swarm
| throwbadubadu wrote:
| Hmm, so many similar interpretations, and I wonder why does
| nobody mention that this is exactly the plot start of that
| book, and then I find this one downvoted? Funny:) Or what am I
| missing?
| _Microft wrote:
| They are referring to this book:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Swarm_(Sch%C3%A4tzing_nove...
| mmwelt wrote:
| In case anyone's wondering, this is a TV series:
|
| https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0808491
| throwbadubadu wrote:
| Actually a book: https://www.amazon.de/Swarm-Novel-Deep-
| Frank-Sch%C3%A4tzing/...
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