Orcas – Additional Thoughts – Sunday 17th September 2023

Orcas – Additional Thoughts – Sunday 17th September 2023

Thinking on the Orcas, especially those that eat meat and I began to wonder when they started to do so. And if, back in that time, their region had a shortage of seafood due to some calamity and they had to eat meat or starve? Or was it a natural progression perhaps? Whatever the reason, all that protein will have advanced their development. And as I understand it, consuming lots of meat can also bring out aggression. So I would expect that the Orca meat and seafood eaters probably differentiate some from the Orca that only eat seafood.

With the passing of time, intellect grows, but if you are confined to water and having fins, then you can never read or write, build things and so on. But you would certainly find the species who can build boats and live on land and water most interesting. But how would you communicate with them and tell them how cognitive you are. It’s clear to me that the Orca are very much like us in ways. One example, we have species that are built similarly to us and are part of our group (primates) but we are so far ahead of them in every way. This is the situation for the Orca and the group they are a part of, so it’s natural for those advanced Orcas to be interested in and want to have to do with us. And there must be Orcas that aren’t as interested in us, but in time they likely will do. (People developed at different paces when nations weren’t as integrated as we are now).

Another way is that they are risk takers, we race cars they will tailgate fast boats. They like to hunt, so do some of us, but with less to occupy Orca they likely tend to focus more on hunting than we would for the entertainment value aspect of it.

I thought about the act of Orca throwing a seal high into the air. It’s an awful thing to do and it shows me that they don’t identify with the seal, or its suffering. We don’t have a separate species that hunts and eats us, so many of us don’t identify with the life forms that we kill and eat and we can be absolutely brutal and callous of these creatures. So again, we see an aspect there that is very much the same but because we like seals, we don’t approve. But to an Orca, a seal is probably equivalent to a lobster for us and we don’t tend to give them much thought. But certainly, the lobster isn’t pleased to suffer either.

It occurred to me that part of that hurling the poor seal probably has an aspect of how high can I hurl it? Just like us when younger with a ball, but of course what else is there for an Orca to throw in the air for fun. And they like to have fun and that’s apparent, it’s just so limiting confined to the ocean and fins.

When Orca approach us, they aren’t wanting a tidbit and pat on the head like a pooch. They are trying to be friends and not as an inferior.

When that group of Orca were or still? approaching certain boats and doing some damage my thought was to get some play toys that are safe for them and direct them away from that behaviour.

It’s very difficult to interact with a species that is different to ourselves in form and in living environment but always, sport is a thing that can be shared by intelligent yet very different species.

So my thought is if you spend a lot of time at sea and have Orca approach you and you would like to interact. Have one of those big strong gym balls that I’ve often seen at Autistic children’s schools and start to play with it so they see it bounce in the air. Then see if one of the Orca would like to try it and you could end up having some volley ball type play with them. I think they’d love to see how far up in the air they could hurl it. Apparently they can’t see the colour blue so perhaps green or another colour that would have appeal.

I think we can be better friends with them than we are at present. We love them, but we can interact with them in new ways and I think that’s what they want from us and would make them very happy.

Fiona MacLeod (C)