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Footage from the BBC's new nature series "Parenthood" shows orcas practicing an important blue whale-hunting technique on each other.Orca moms teach their young how to pretend-drown each other, first-of-its-kind footage shows. The brutal training session teaches orcas the skills needed to kill the largest animal that has ever lived. In the video, a young orca (Orcinus orca) pretends to be prey, letting the rest of the pod surround it and submerge its blowhole to prevent it from breathing. Members of the pod practice holding the young orca's head under the water for a while before releasing it. Later in...

Wild orcas, also known as Killer whales, have been spotted offering food to humans in unusual interactions recorded over the past 20 years, according to a new study that has scientists searching for answers. The findings, published in the Journal of Comparative Psychology, describe 34 confirmed cases where orcas voluntarily approached humans and dropped sea creatures near them. These offerings included fish, seabirds, stingrays, whale parts, seaweed, and even a turtle. Most interactions were observed off the coasts of California, Norway, and New Zealand. The orcas often paused after delivering the prey, as if watching to see how people would...

Two orcas and 12 dolphins have been stuck in bleak living conditions in an abandoned marine park since January. The majestic creatures remain confined in Marineland Antibes, a French marine park near Cannes that shut its doors four months ago. Disturbing drone footage released by animal activist group TideBreakers shows the orcas Wikie, 23, and her 11-year-old son Keijo wandering aimlessly around the abandoned park. The video also shows the algae-infested pool where the remaining dolphins are kept. But despite their despairing condition, French authorities have yet to identify a suitable site in Europe for the orcas and have rejected...

Over a year after a 15-foot great white shark was found dead with mysterious bite wounds and stripped of its internal organs, DNA analysis uncovered its killers. Two animals, orcas, also known as killer whales, and broadnose sevengill sharks, were responsible for the gruesome attack... The body of the massive shark, known as the Carcharodon carcharias, was discovered in October 2023 in southeastern Australia, baffling scientists. ... The carcass sparked significant attention from the public due to its size, bite marks, and the speculation of it being the result of a killer whale predation, ... Although its head, spine, and...

A marina biologist captured a rare sight in the Monterey Bay over the weekend. Nancy Black, a marine biologist with Monterey Bay Whale Watch and the director of the California Killer Whale Project, said that on Saturday, a group of orcas was spotted. The group included an adult female with her offspring, according to Black. "They had fed on a few sea lions earlier in the day, and when we found them, they were spy-hopping, breaching, pec and tail slapping and just very surface active. The youngsters were chasing each other, and the group was rolling together with lots of...

Ayacht navigating the Strait of Gibraltar recently sank after a pod of orcas launched a dramatic attack, marking the latest incident in a series of troubling encounters with these killer whales. Robert Powell, the British yachtsman affected, said that "these (orcas) were not playing" and described the attack as "well-organized and coordinated" in a social media post. Powell and two other occupants of the yacht, called Bonhomie William, had to be rescued by Spanish coastguards on Wednesday 24 after orcas disabled the vessel's steering and subjected it to severe buffeting. However, Volker Deecke, a professor of wildlife conservation at the...

Orcas relentlessly battered a yacht in a “terrifying” two-hour attack that didn’t end until the $128,680 vessel sunk to the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea. ... they were not playing at all, they knew exactly what they were doing. They knew the weak points of the boat, and they knew how to sink it... “Their sole intention was to sink the boat ... The five orcas circled the 39-foot sailing boat and took turns smashing it to bits .. in a coordinated assault Powell compared to the carnage of wolves. ... The pod of five first focused on the rudder,...

A sailing vessel off Gibraltar has become the first this year to be sunk by orcas that have been targeting boats in the area since 2020. Crew members of the Alboran Cognac boat called rescue services for help around 9am on Sunday, saying that their ship had been damaged by orcas 14 miles from Cape Spartel, at the southern entrance to the Strait of Gibraltar, in Moroccan waters. The sailors said they had felt hits on the hull, before their rudder was damaged and they noticed a leak threatening to sink their 50ft boat, local outlet El Pais reports. They...

Team JAJO had some special –– and terrifying –– visitors while sailing in the Strait of Gibraltar as part of the 2023 Ocean Race on Thursday. A group of orcas, otherwise known as killer whales, surrounded the Dutch crew’s yacht, first circling the boat and then ramming into it. “This was a scary moment,” Jelmer van Beek, Team JAJO skipper, said, according to the Associated Press. “Three orcas came straight at us and started hitting the rudders. Impressive to see the orcas, beautiful animals, but also a dangerous moment for us as a team.” Some of Team JAJO’s crew banged...

Scientists think a traumatized orca initiated the assault on boats after a "critical moment of agony" and that the behavior is spreading among the population through social learning.Orcas have mainly directed their efforts at sailboats, making a beeline for the rudder. (Image credit: Shutterstock) Orcas have attacked and sunk a third boat off the Iberian coast of Europe, and experts now believe the behavior is being copied by the rest of the population. Three orcas (Orcinus orca), also known as killer whales, struck the yacht on the night of May 4 in the Strait of Gibraltar, off the coast...

Crew members with the Pacific Whale Watch Association (PWWA) observed a rare, aggressive confrontation between a group of Bigg's orca whales and a pair of humpback whales spotted in the waters near the western Canada-U.S. border. On Sept. 29, crew members on an Eagle Wing Tours whale-watching boat encountered the orcas first. The boat discovered around 15 orca whales "being unusually active at the surface," according to a PWWA press release. Another whale-watching boat discovered two humpback whales interacting with the orcas shortly afterward, the association added. "According to observers who came and went throughout the day, the encounter included...

A pair of orcas killing great white sharks by ripping open their torsos for their livers — and as a result scaring away great whites from a South African region — has raised questions about whether that could happen along Cape Cod. But it’s “really too early to say” if killer whales will descend upon the Massachusetts coast and drive away the growing great white shark population, a local shark expert tells the Herald. “When there have been orca sightings here through the years, they’ve never really seemed to impact the white sharks in the area,” said John Chisholm, who...

There’s a new type of killer whale that prowls deeper waters and specializes in hunting big game, new research by a B.C. scientist suggests. ...But evidence indicates there’s a newly identified type of orca — outer coast killer whales — that are a distinct subgroup of transient whales, and which frequent the ocean depths along the continental shelf off the coast of central California and Oregon, said lead author Josh McInnes, a scientist with the Marine Mammal Research Unit at the University of British Columbia. Once believed to be part of the larger West Coast population, these outer coast killer...

A distressed killer whale has been filmed banging her head against a tank at an enclosure after outliving her five babies. The heart-breaking footage was taken by anti-captivity activists at MarineLand, Niagara Falls earlier this month and shared on social media. 'Anti-captivity activists entered MarineLand and observed Kiska, their last surviving orca bashing her head against the wall. ... The 44-year-old orca was born off the coast of Iceland and has been in captivity since 1979, according to Demers. She has spent the last 10 years alone after outliving her tank mates, including her five offspring....

The study monitored the movements of 165 great white sharks near Farallon island and documented four encounters between visiting orcas and resident sharksFor years, the great white shark has been believed to be the ocean’s most feared predator. But when five shark carcasses washed ashore on a beach in South Africa’s Western Cape province in 2017, livers chomped from their bodies, a new question loomed in marine researcher’s minds — could the predator be prey? Scientists examined the bite marks under the pectoral fins of the dead sharks and found that they matched only one other oceanic species — the...

Just when you think orcas couldn't possible be any more awesome, they get even better. A study in 2019 showed these whales are really good at scaring off the most feared beast in the sea. Yep. Orcas have toppled the great white shark off their 'apex predator' throne. A team of marine scientists found that great white sharks (Carcharodon carcharias) will make themselves extremely scarce whenever they detect the presence of orcas (Orcinus orca). "When confronted by orcas, white sharks will immediately vacate their preferred hunting ground and will not return for up to a year, even though the orcas...

Typically orcas don't show up in Monterey until April and May but this year something different is happening.Spectacular video from local outfitter Monterey Bay Whale Watch shows orca action in the Monterey Bay on Friday. The whale watching outfitter's owner and marine biologist Nancy Black said her crews came across two killer whale pods. Making for some happy tourists. Advertisement "Killer whales are the top everybody is hoping to see them," said Black. On Monday the orcas were nowhere to be seen. "One humpback whale and they said 11 gray whales," said whale watcher Michelle Chen about what she saw...

At the bottom of the world, in some of the roughest seas, live mysterious killer whales that look very different from other orcas. Now, for the first time, scientists have located and studied these animals in the wild. The orcas are “highly likely” to be a new species, says Robert Pitman, a researcher with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The scientific team made the finding in January about 60 miles off the coast of Cape Horn, Chile..

A rare sighting in the animal kingdom continues to mesmerize marine biologists and whale watchers in the Monterey Bay. For the fourth day in a row, whale watchers on Sunday spotted an abnormally large pod of killer whales feasting on the carcasses of two gray whales, according to Nancy Black from Monterey Bay Whale Watch. Killer whales are famous for their violent attacks and relentless feeding practices, but to see this type of behavior and this amount of mammal-eating creatures just off the coast of Monterey is "pretty rare," Black said. "This won't happen everyday," she said. The first gray...

SeaWorld announced on Thursday it would ends its killer whale breeding program, and those currently at its parks would be the last. The Orlando-based theme park has faced dwindling attendance and years of criticism over its treatment of the captive marine mammals as well as pressure from animal rights activists to end public exhibition of killer whales altogether. SeaWorld, which operates parks in San Diego, Orlando and San Antonio, said in November it would replace its signature 'Shamu' killer whale shows in San Diego with displays focused on conservation.