Trans-Pacific Cruise

Jessi gave a lecture on the orca aka killer whale aka blackfish.

They are the second fastest marine mammal (second to the dolphin) can swim up to 35 mph. Can grow up to 32 feet long. They are family oriented and do not cross breed or hang out with other pods.

Sounds kind of incestuous, to me.

They do not have any predators. Different pods from different locations like to snack on specific things. Some pods may eat fish, some may prefer seals, some penguins, some even eat moose, and some go for whales. They will eat only the liver of the great white shark, by somehow surgically removing it. In oenguins, they only eat the breast meat.

The grandmother is the matriarch and the one in charge. They teach their young how to hunt. The females have a menopause where they do not make babies after so many decades.

They can live on average around 40 - 50 years to as old as 90 - the oldest known female was over 100! Females often live longer.

They often protect humans, and gift them foods. Jessi said she thinks it is because they think humans are skinny killer whales who suck at fishing. 😂 They have been known to protect humans from sharks and lead them back to land.

She touched slightly on orcas near Europe (Portugal, Spain) that have removed rudders from sailboats, sinking the boats. Scientists do not know why orcas are going after the rudders of boats. It could be teenage orcas playing around or they could just want to get rid of boats because of all the fishing vessels taking their fish. Or it could even be retaliation for boats that harm orcas inadvertently.

Orcas are beautiful creatures with a brain that weighs over 14 pounds. They are incredibly intelligent and appear to have dialects and vocabulary that changes by the pod or region. They use echolocation to find fish and they use clicks and pulses to communicate.

They use their bodies to slam into ice to hunt mammals on ice, they use their tails to stun fish, they use their bodies to ram into sharks and whales. Quite interesting behavior for a whale that eats up to 100 pounds of food per day.

Orcas in captivity have a dorsal fin that is rounded instead of straight up and down because the dorsal fin is made of collagen and requires water pressure to keep it straight up and in captivity they just don't have the sea depth or area to create that pressure so the dorsal fin will slump over. Sad.

Only one wild orca attack on a human has ever been recorded (in the 60s or 70s) and scientists believe that as soon as the orca realized the surfer was not a seal, it let them go. There have been fatalities on humans from orcas that are in captivity. Having been likely taken brutally from your home and watching family perish or not being able to see family can be devastating. Couple that with having humans standing on you and making you perform in a small tank while being gawked at and not eating as much as you need. Really sad. Just for our enjoyment.

I've been to Sea World and I loved the orca show but it is sad how small their tanks are. You almost want them to have a huge deep tank to swim in if kept in captivity but at the same time I also only think they should be kept in captivity if they are unable to survive on their own. Like we are helping them instead of hindering them. The animal lover in me.Read more