In this episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast, host Andrew Lewin discusses the fascinating behavior of orcas, particularly their recent predation on whale sharks, the largest fish in the ocean.
Orcas, known as apex predators, have been observed hunting whale sharks in the Gulf of California. This behavior was documented in a new study published in the journal Frontiers of Marine Science, which includes video footage and images of the attacks. The orcas target the whale sharks by striking their underbelly and grabbing their pectoral fins, aiming for the nutrient-rich liver, similar to their hunting strategies for great white sharks.
The study tracked four predation events over six years, highlighting a male orca named Moctezuma, who participated in three of these events alongside females from the same pod. This suggests that the orcas are learning and refining their hunting techniques over time.
Lewin emphasizes the importance of understanding this new predation behavior, as it indicates that whale sharks have a formidable predator. He also stresses the need for conservation efforts to protect whale sharks, which face threats from climate change, pollution, and fishing activities. The episode concludes with a call for further research and discussion on the implications of orcas hunting whale sharks and the overall health of marine ecosystems.
Link to article: https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/marine-science/articles/10.3389/fmars.2024.1448254/full#supplementary-material
Follow a career in conservation:
https://www.conservation-careers.com/online-training/ Use the code SUFB to get 33% off courses and the careers program. Do you want to join my Ocean Community? Sign Up for Updates on the process:
www.speakupforblue.com/oceanapp Sign up for our Newsletter:
http://www.speakupforblue.com/newsletter Facebook Group:
https://bit.ly/3NmYvsI Connect with Speak Up For Blue: Website: https://bit.ly/3fOF3Wf Instagram: https://bit.ly/3rIaJSG TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@speakupforblue Twitter: https://bit.ly/3rHZxpc YouTube: www.speakupforblue.com/youtube
Orca's are the apex predators. They've been known to take down great white sharks. They've been known to take down blue whales. They've been known to take down seals and it's pretty interesting to watch as they work together as a pod to ensure that everybody gets a good meal. It's really interesting to follow orcas and to learn more and more about orcas and there's new news about this apex predator that really brings an interesting light to them in that they have now started to hunt or maybe have been hunting them for a while. We just finally caught it on video hunting the largest fish in the ocean, the whale shark. We're gonna find out how this is happening. We're gonna find out maybe why this is happening and where it's happening on this episode of The How to Protect the Ocean Podcast. Let's start the show. Hey everybody, welcome back to another exciting episode of The How to Protect the Ocean Podcast. I'm your host Andrew Lewin, and this is the podcast where you find out what's happening with the ocean, how you can speak up for the ocean, and what you can do to live for a better ocean by taking action. This is the resource for you to learn about the ocean. If you want to learn more and you want to stay tuned to us, you can subscribe to this episode. You can go to our website SpeakUpForBlue.com to see our YouTube videos, our podcast episodes, our podcast in our network. So, other podcasts like The Beyond Jaws Podcasts and so forth, you will get everything you need to know. Stuff that I didn't have when I was a kid, I had to go to the library, find picture books and stuff like that. Now you have the ability to find out different mediums of content. And if you want it to, you don't have time to go there with SpeakUpForBlue.com all the time, and you want it to get to your inbox, get that information to your inbox, you should go to SpeakUpForBlue.com/newsletter to get the information to your inbox, Monday to Friday, 8 a.m. Eastern. So, check that out, SpeakUpForBlue.com/newsletter. Let's start the show. Today, we're going to be talking about orcas. And, you know, it's always good to hear about orcas. We have seen orcas in a lot of different lights. You know, we've seen them vulnerable to, you know, elements where it's like not enough food in the southern resident orca population. Dams preventing that food, the salmon, from rebuilding its populations. We've seen lower pH that affects the salmon from coming back. So, we've seen that. We've seen the fact that the same population, the southern resident orca population, has been taken, in the 1970s, were taken from their parents, from their mothers, and ripped out of the ocean and brought into tanks, and still some of those aren't in tanks. So, we've seen a decrease in that population. We've also seen orcas thrive on attacking boats, and playing around with boats, and trying to figure out how to hunt better by hunting sailboats in the Strait of Gibraltar. And we've seen orcas hunt seals. We've seen orcas hunt in South Africa, hunt great white sharks. Port and starboard orcas that are sort of stirring up a controversy of why great white sharks aren't found in South Africa anymore. It's always interesting that I'll link to that episode on your YouTube channel, so you can check that out. But they've been a lot of things about orcas, and they've been pretty much hunting everything. The way they hunt is really interesting. They use everybody in their pod. It's a matriarchical pod, meaning the females are in charge. The females stay inside the pod, the males stay on the outside of the pod, but they work together to feed. You've seen videos and clips of orcas hunting sea lions and seals where they're hunting seals, and they make a tidal wave so that the seals are hit off the piece of floating ice, and it goes into the mouth of another orca. So, it's like it's showing how unselfish they are. They want to make sure that everybody in the pod gets their share and they switch it up after that. We've also heard of and seen images of blue whales being hunted by orcas, and the coordinated attacks on these blue whales, the largest mammal on the planet. And now we have footage and pictures of orcas hunting the largest fish on the planet whale sharks. And this is a really interesting thing because there's a new article, a journal article, published in frontiers of marine science. They have video and pictures, and they have witnessed attacks from orcas, a pod of orcas in the Gulf of California, where they are attacking whale sharks. And the way they're attacking whale sharks is that they're hitting them in their pelvis area, like on their underbelly, and they're hitting them and grabbing them from their pectoral fins, and they're grabbing them from their class prison. And why are they going there? For the same reason they go after great white sharks is for that nutrient-rich liver. And just think about a great white shark that's about 20 feet long. You're looking at a pretty big liver, a whale shark, the largest fish on the planet, has an even bigger liver, which allows for them to have more nutrients, be able to better feed, probably for a number of orcas, and it just ends up being a better meal overall. Knowing that this is happening, this may not be something that's new. The study looked at the predation events, there's four predation events, over a period of about 60 years from 2018 to 2024. They noticed that one of the males, I think they named him Moktazuma. Moktazuma, I don't know if I'm pronouncing that properly, but it's Moktazuma. Engaged in three out of the four events, and the females involved in the event had previously been sighted with him. It's the same pot attacking these whale sharks in the Gulf of California, and being quite successful at it. So we don't know if this is the only time, or this is the beginning of this. Chances are with the way that they're attacking, they're learning every single time. Like we've seen Portland Starbird, we've heard of them, how they're getting more and more efficient. It used to be two orcas, like both of them attacking the same great white. Now it seems to be one at a time, and being able to attack multiple great whites in a very short span of time. This seems to be, it's like two maybe three orcas attacking at the same time, hitting their underbelly, trying to get their pectoral fins, and then ripping out their liver and being able to eat their liver. There's still a lot that needs to be shown with this, but it's something that is incredible to be able to know that, hey, you know what, we've discovered another thing that this, like this predator, this apex predator, has been able to accomplish. And maybe it's probably been done before, and it'll probably be done in the future, but it's now, and we know that it actually happens. It tells a lot of, for a number of reasons. So the first reason is, it kind of gives another little aspect to the orcas in their predation. We know orcas can predict great whites, we know they can, other sharks and fish, mola molas, salmon, so forth, and they have very interesting ways of displaying their kill sometimes. Like, for instance, this article came out describing an orca having a dead salmon on top of the head, on top of their head. Like, they were just wearing it like a hat. We've known that it's also happened with mola molas, that's had happened in the past. And so they have a very interesting way of eating, and they're very interesting in displaying what they eat. I don't know if it's because they're having fun, they're kind of showing that they can have this predation. We don't know exactly what's happening, but their intelligence, the way they behave socially, is sometimes it's still a mystery. And it's always interesting to find out a little bit more, and this is what we're finding out a little bit more and more. They're finding out that, look, we know livers are very nutrient rich, so we know that they go for it for great white sharks and other sharks. Largest shark in the world, hey, largest fish in the world, now we know that they go after these livers because they're nutrient and they're huge. And so that is something to tell. The other thing that we have to look at as well is that whale sharks have a predator, and a very good predator at that. They need to be protected. There's no change from that. They need to be protected just from a basis of we don't know a lot about whale sharks. We're just discovering that with through tagging that we look at their global distribution and that we're seeing a lot of connections across the world in terms of populations. But we're just really scratching the surface with this fish, right? We're just scratching the surface. We're being able to identify them through their patterns on their backs, like the spots on their backs. But also we now know that they have a predator that's really good at hunting, and they are obviously getting better and better at hunting whale sharks, and that's not going to stop. So protecting this species is really important. We have climate change. We have water quality problems. We have just like poaching events and fishing in general. There's plastic debris and plastic pollution and marine debris that we have to worry about. There's a lot of things that we have to worry about, and now there's natural predation. And a predation from a species that is really good at hunting, like I mean really good at hunting. It's going to be interesting to see where this research develops later on and how we find out more and more about this pod and more and more about their hunting strategy. Obviously now with the ability to be able to film at a higher pace, to be able to film in places further around and film from like a drone footage, we are being able to discover a lot of things. Technology is really helping in that. We're going to be able to understand animals a lot better, and we're being able to understand orcas as well as whale sharks a lot better and what's affecting this prey and predator situation. That's it for today's episode. I just want to bring you that. I thought we would start it off with a fun time this week and being able to say, "Hey, you know what, orcas are cool, and whale sharks, maybe they're a little worried about what's happening." But I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. Do you think it's a cool thing for orcas? Do you think whale sharks? We have to be worried about whale sharks and their population in the Gulf of California. I'd love to hear your thoughts. If you have more information on this, if you're working on this and you're listening to this and be like, "Oh, man, we need to talk Andrew, hit me up. I'd love to hear from you. I'd love to get you on an episode to be able to talk more, maybe do an interview on this because I would like to know more about these orcas." That's it for today's episode. Don't forget, if you want to subscribe to our newsletter, go to speakupforblue.com/newsletter. If you want to get a hold of me, well, one, you can stay connected on Spotify, on Apple, as well as on YouTube, just subscribe, follow, whatever you need to do. Hit the notification bell so that you know you don't miss an episode. You want to also directly DM me on Instagram @howtoprotecttheocean. That's @howtoprotecttheocean. That's it for today's episode. I'm your host, Andrew Lewin. Until next time, have a great day. We'll talk to you next time, and happy conservation. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)
