Wild orcas will sometimes offer food to humans
Orcas (Orcinus Orca) Do not seem to be big fans of yachts, but some of them can be curious about the humans themselves. According to a study published on June 30 in the Journal of Comparative PsychologyResearchers in ketology have confirmed dozens of cases of vesters who intentionally approach people and offering them food – a behavior which they generally reserve for the construction of links between orc pods.
“Orcs often share food between them – it is a prosocial activity and a means of building relations with each other,” said Jared Towers, principal author of the study and executive director of the British Columbia Research Organization Bay thisology, in a press release. “That they also share with humans can also show their interest in binding us to us.”
Towers has collaborated with Vanessa Prigollini in Mexico City Marine Education Association as well as the expert of the assignestones Ingrid Visse to the Orca Research Trust in New Zealand to collect incidents of the Apex predators who voluntarily meeting people. They have finally confirmed 34 events extending over the past two decades. In total, 11 cases involved orcas which approached humans swimming in the water, 21 cases occurred while people were on boats, and two other examples were recorded from the shore.
However, the researchers did not simply take witnesses to the word. In order to be included in the study, potential documentation had to meet rigorous criteria after examining video and photographic evidence, as well as subject interviews. In each event, the orcas must have approached humans of their own will, then dropped an element in front of them. The whales varied both in age and sex, but anything but one seemed to wait for a reaction. In some cases, they even reached their food offers – a mixture of fish, mammals, invertebrates, birds, as well as a reptile and a single piece of algae.
“Offering elements to humans could simultaneously include opportunities for killers of killers to practice the cultural behavior learned, explore or play and, in doing so, discover, manipulate or develop relationships with us,” wrote researchers in the study. “Giving the advanced cognitive capacities and the social and cooperative nature of this species, we assume that all or all these explanations and the results of this behavior are possible.”
The team added that these can be the first in -depth descriptions of un domesticated animals behaving generally reserved for pets such as cats and dogs. They can also mark the first accounts of wild predators by deliberately using prey and other objects to “directly explore human behavior”. If it is true, these cases “can highlight the evolutionary convergence of the intellect between primates and the highest dolphins.”
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