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Orcas Are Attacking Us. Here’s Why · Be Amazed

• 0:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: In May 2023, a crew of experienced sailors were cruising along the Spanish coastline.
• 0:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was a sunny day.
• 0:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: The waters were calm.
• 0:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was a perfect day to go sailing, but then out of nowhere something struck the ship.
• 0:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: When the crew rushed to the stern of the boat, they saw that the ship's rudder had been completely sheared off, and a huge hole in the hole had been pierced.
• 0:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: Water was pouring in and rudderless and unable to steer the boat to shore the crew were forced to bail water as they radioed for help.
• 0:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: had they got caught on a rocky reef, and a rogue waved it then, but then the crew discovered something had actually bitten into the ship, a shark perhaps, a great white, then in that moment they saw them, not one, but several sleek black fins circling around the ship.
• 0:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was Orcas, for some reason a pot of usually peaceful Orcas had targeted and attacked the ship.
• 1:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: Orcas are also known by their nickname of killer whales, and while they've never been known to target humans in the wild, they did target this ship.
• 1:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: But not just this ship, multiple Orca attacks on boats and sailing vessels have recently been reported off the Atlantic coast of Spain and Portugal.
• 1:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: and not just a few, hundreds of reports have been logged since 2020.
• 1:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: But why?
• 1:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: Is this a weird game created by the Orcas?
• 1:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: Is something in the ocean driving them mad?
• 1:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: Is it revenge?
• 1:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, grab your water wings because we're diving into this mystery to find out why killer whales have decided to wage war against humans.
• 2:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: First let's get up close with this whale, although actually while often conned killer whales, Horkas are the largest member of the Dolphin family.
• 2:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: They were given this nickname by the ancient tales of sailors who witnessed groups of Horkas hunting larger whale species.
• 2:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: They named them whale killers, a name that was eventually flipped around to killer whales.
• 2:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: Ha, I'm more you know.
• 2:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: Names aside, these carnivorous creatures measure up to 32 feet and length way up to 6 tons and possess the largest dorsal fan of any marine mammal, which can reach up to 6 feet tall.
• 2:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: For some perspective, some large adult orcas can be the equivalent size and weight of a fountain thundercat speedboat.
• 2:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: And living up to the comparison, there are also some of the fastest marine mammals in the ocean.
• 2:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: able to reach speeds of up to 34.8 miles per hour.
• 2:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: So if you ever find yourself in the ocean with an Orca, don't think you could ever out swim them.
• 3:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: But not to worry is no fatal wild Orca attacks on humans have ever been recorded.
• 3:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's a different and much darker story for those kept in captivity, but that's for another day.
• 3:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now, most interactions between wild workers and humans have been driven by playful curiosity and have even led to some unique friendships, just like free willy.
• 3:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now, that's a throwback reference for all the 90s kids, and do I feel old.
• 3:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: But not as old as in a worker, as these big old seabeds can live anywhere from 50 up to 90 years old.
• 3:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: And typically, over the course of their long lives, workers have never held grudges against humans.
• 3:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: That is, until 2020, with over 500 attacks by Orcas on both selling off the Spanish coastline reported until 2023, resulting in at least re-sumpting ships.
• 3:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: What's even scarier is how tactical the Orcas are in their attacks.
• 3:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: A viral clip shows that the Orca deliberately target the ship's rudder, which is vital for the ship to steer.
• 4:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: And with one bite, it snaps it off completely.
• 4:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: This group of Orcas only took 15 minutes to break off both this ship's rudders.
• 4:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: And what's worse, for Captain Daniel Chris, this is the second time his boat has been attacked by Orcas.
• 4:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: The first attack was in 2020 and three years later, the Orcas returned to wreak havoc again.
• 4:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: Thankfully this ship was still able to rely on its motors and Captain Chris was able to slowly
• 4:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: Other ships haven't been so lucky and rudderless, have been left stranded in the ocean for days until the Coast Guard could rescue them.
• 4:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: But how have Orcas learned to so expertly target in break ships?
• 4:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, that's because behind that cute black and white face is a highly intelligent and deadly predator.
• 4:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: Orcas are excellent hunters working together in groups of up to 30 known as pods to take down their prey.
• 5:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: They're deadly, even in the darkest waters using echolocation to detect fish up to 500 feet away.
• 5:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: Though by far an Orca's deadliest weapon is, they're intelligence.
• 5:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: Orca's have the second biggest brains among all ocean mammals weighing in at 15 pounds.
• 5:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: However size doesn't matter when it comes to brains at least.
• 5:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: Typically bigger animals also have bigger brains to control the extra muscles and nerves in their huge bodies.
• 5:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: While the smarter species on the planet, us have a relatively small brain weighing at
• 5:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: and what scientists take into account that determine intelligence is the ratio of body size to brain size.
• 5:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: For example, human brains are seven times the size of our average body mass.
• 6:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: A mammal, the typical size of a human, shouldn't need such a large brain as ours, but our brains have evolved to become bigger as we have used our intelligence to solve more complex tests.
• 6:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: Meanwhile, orcas brains are two at a half times the average size of their body mass, the same body-to-brain ratio as chimpanzees.
• 6:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: And considering chimps can use sign language and tools, they're universally acknowledged as smart animals with chimps as they consider to have the same learning ability as a human toddler.
• 6:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: So by comparison, Orcas may have the same mental capacity as a preschooler.
• 6:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: But scientists think that this brand of body ratio seriously underestimates Orcas intelligence, and they may be even smarter than we realize.
• 6:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: How smart?
• 6:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, they've adapted to live in every ocean in the world, the same way humans have adapted to live just about anywhere on land.
• 6:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: In fact, Orcas are the second furthest ranging mammal on the planet only after humans.
• 7:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: They can be found everywhere from the tropical Indian Ocean to the freezing southern ocean surrounding Antarctica, and in each oceanic environment, they've adapted to survive and thrive.
• 7:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: Despite this however, workers are surprisingly picky eaters.
• 7:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: Once they've decided on a food source, they'll stick to it.
• 7:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: Northeastern Pacific Resident Orcas are fish eaters, whereas their coastal counterparts refer meteor diets consisting of seals and sea otters.
• 7:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: Meanwhile, Doundanda and the Southern Hemisphere workers have been known to enjoy even more extreme cuisine, including stingrays.
• 7:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now stingrays are famous for their deadly venomous spines, but to orcas out the coast of New Zealand, near the undersea equivalent of a Dorito.
• 7:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: To hunt the rays, these orcas have figured out that when razor flipped upside down, the inner estate of paralysis.
• 7:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: In some cases, an orca will pin the ray to the ocean floor upside down, while another orca carefully removes the stinger with its teeth.
• 8:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: The de-stunk stingray is then eaten, venom-free!
• 8:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: But as impressive as that is, these orcas also have an appetite for something far more dangerous.
• 8:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: Sharks Well, we're all terrified of coming across a shark in the ocean.
• 8:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: Sharks are scared of coming across the orcas.
• 8:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: You may think the great white shark with its 20-foot-long body and 50 razor-sharp teeth is an unbeatable opponent in the ocean, but Orcas have mastered the art of hunting these great white prides.
• 8:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: Their method is dubbed the karate chop, as it's a technique carried out with the finesse of a martial arts master.
• 8:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: Using its broad tail, the killer whale pushes the shark to the surface.
• 8:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: The orca then pivots and raises its tail high into the air, crashing it down onto the shark's head.
• 8:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: The stun shark is then flipped over sending it into a paralyzed state called tonic immobility.
• 9:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now, paralyzed like the rays, the shark becomes fish food for the orcas.
• 9:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: But this price meal comes at a sharp cost of the orcas.
• 9:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: Though sharks may look sleek and smooth gliding through the water, their skin is actually covered in tiny v-shaped scales that are more like teeth than fish scales.
• 9:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like sharks weren't already lethal enough, the sandpaper like quality of the scales can cause a nasty greyish known as shark bird.
• 9:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: They help the shark decrease drag and the water allowing them to swim faster and quieter, but this also comes at a nasty cost to the feasting workers as this scaly scan eventually, wears down the orchestra's teeth to the gums.
• 9:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, such, workers have learned to target only the most nutritious parts of the shark, the liver, reducing the amount of contact with its scan and often leaving the rest of a shark's carcass that float off and rot.
• 10:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: Ew.
• 10:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: Meanwhile, Orcas off the Norwegian coast have learned how to herd fish like sheep.
• 10:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: How?
• 10:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: By creating bait balls.
• 10:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: These orcas use a combination of air bubbles and belly flashes to herd schools of herring into a tight ball near the surface of the water.
• 10:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: The Orcas then slap the ball with their tails, stunning the fish, making them easier to gulp down by the mouthful.
• 10:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: OK, so they've learned to turn just about anything into a food source, but what about other threats like beaching?
• 10:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: For many sea creatures, beaching is bad.
• 10:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: Being washed up on a shore with no way to get back out into deeper waters can lead the dehydration and death.
• 10:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: But Oercos haven't just conquered this weakness, they've also turned it to their advantage.
• 10:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: On the Argentinian coastline, Oercos capitalized on the fact that elephant seals and sea lions use the rocky shores as a place to birth and raise their young.
• 10:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: When the moment arises, Oercos serves a wave onto the shore grabs a seal buff and its teeth that rolls its body and uses another wave to pull it back into deeper water.
• 11:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: In Orcas don't just surf waves, but create them too.
• 11:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: In the Southern Ocean of Antarctica, they've developed an ingenious strategy to hunt.
• 11:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: Seals often rest on ice flows, but even out of the water, seals aren't safe from work as.
• 11:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: Scientists have observed pods of five to seven orcas working cooperatively to chip away
• 11:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: The Orcas also push the ice out into open water and away from adjacent ice sheets, making a escape impossible.
• 11:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: Once the ice flow has been narrowed enough, the Orcas retreat to a distance of roughly 50 feet, then simultaneously swim at full speed towards the ice.
• 12:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: At the last moment, the group ducks beneath the ice, creating a wave that tips the ice flow and sends the seal crashing into the water.
• 12:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: Bad news for the seal, as it becomes dinner.
• 12:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: but a clear demonstration of the genius tactics of these workers as they continuously vocalized each other to coordinate their group attack with such precision.
• 12:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: In fact, there's no prey to big for workers to handle.
• 12:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like I said before, workers got their famous nickname as they are literally killers of whales.
• 12:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: They've been observed attacking gray whales, humpback whales, and even the world's biggest creature, the blue whales.
• 12:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: The attacks all follow up a familiar pattern.
• 12:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: The Orcas take turns ramming, biting, and pulling on the whale's fins and wearing it down.
• 12:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: The Orcas even lush aerial attacks leaping from the water onto the whale's back trying to prevent its blow-hole from breaching the surface and starving it of air.
• 13:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: After a chase that can go on for hours, the exhaust and whale eventually drowns.
• 13:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: The Orcas then go to work, stripping the whale of its most nutritious parts, its tongue, blubber, and sometimes liver.
• 13:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: But that's it!
• 13:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: They leave the rest of the carcass for scavengers.
• 13:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's no creature that the Orcas haven't worked out how to hunt, and now they've turned their
• 13:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: but considering how an edible boat tend to be, why have workers decided to start attacking them?
• 13:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: Previously, they've been known to playfully chase after boats racing them, often surfing and waves created by the way.
• 13:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: But workers ain't planned no more.
• 13:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now they've started charging at boats instead, and these aren't light taps either, but hard enough blows to send those on board knocked off balance.
• 13:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: The location where there's been the most dramatic spike in Orca aggression towards boats is along this Spanish coastline, and the reason why are worried scientists.
• 14:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: Interactions are generally rare with Orca's only touching an estimated one in every 100 boats passing through the area.
• 14:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: But when the workers have launched attacks on boats, it's resulted in devastating damage.
• 14:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's what happened to Matt Johnson when he was selling near Senate's Portugal in 2023.
• 14:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: He was helpless as a pot of workers circled around and that ran into his boat, spinning it 90 degrees off course.
• 14:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: The Yorkus worked in a closely coordinated effort with the larger older Yorkus battering the boat with their heads, while a younger pair of Yorkus attacked the rudder and broke off pieces of the boat.
• 14:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: What's interesting though is that other killer will attacks in the area appear to follow this same distinct batter.
• 14:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like one incident when a yacht was sailing in the street of Gibraltar, the Orcas hammered at the boat not once, not twice, but constantly, for three hours.
• 15:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: Eventually, they chewed off the rudder, and while it stayed afloat, the yacht had to be towed back to shore for repair.
• 15:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: But what's the motivation behind these attacks?
• 15:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, scientists had two theories.
• 15:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: Some believe it's a form of play, while other suspects called calculated revenge.
• 15:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: But why would Orcas want to enact revenge against humans?
• 15:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: Had they realized where the cause of all the plastic in the ocean?
• 15:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: Or had they watched one of the many documentaries about SeaWorld?
• 15:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, a leading theory is that a traumatic event with a boat triggered a change in the behavior of one orca.
• 15:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: Experts have named this female Orca White Gladys, and believes she may have had a scarring incident with a boat during some illegal fishing activity.
• 15:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: This pain will event then flipped a behavioral switch in that Orca's brain to attack other boats as a form of self-defense.
• 16:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: Though you may be wondering, that this event only affected one Orca, why have all the other Orca's also begun hunting boats?
• 16:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, that's because Oercas live in highly social matriarchal groups where female Oercas hold important positions.
• 16:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: And because Oercas are social creatures they learn by copying behaviors performed by others.
• 16:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: So with a matriarch began attacking boats, it's likely this behavior was copied and rapidly spread amongst the rest of that Oerca population.
• 16:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: Scientists believe orcas are not deliberately teaching their young to attack boats, rather the behavior is spread to the young orcas by imitation because they've seen the adults do it and consider an important skill to master.
• 16:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: Which would explain why the orcas use the same methods to attack the boats again and again, essentially becoming part of the whale's culture.
• 16:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now you might think it's strange that I just used a word of culture.
• 16:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: The find is a manifestation of intellect regarded collectively, surely that's something that only applies to humans, right?
• 17:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, here's the kicker.
• 17:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: Different orchopods have their own unique cultures.
• 17:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: They each even have their own languages.
• 17:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: All the squeaks, whistles, and clicks they make may sound the same to us, but experts have analyzed these adorable sounds and discovered that even in workupods that both reside in the coastal waters of British Columbia, their vocalizations are as distinct from one another as human-speaking English versus Greek.
• 17:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: In fact, Orca culture may be far more complex than we ever predicted.
• 17:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: Scientists have found increasing evidence that culture shapes what Orca's eat, their choice of mates, and even what they do for fun, which leads to the alternative explanation for why Orca's have started attacking books.
• 17:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: It may just be an elaborate, culturally accepted game.
• 17:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: Still confusing?
• 17:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, how else can I explain this?
• 17:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, remember the dangerous idiotic and viral tie-vod challenge, where kids found themselves eating detergent capsules which are notoriously poisonous to ingest?
• 18:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, this could be the Orco Aquivalent of that Daredevil trend, the bite about challenge.
• 18:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: Just like humans orcas sometimes mimic behaviors from one another, really for fun.
• 18:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: For example, in 1987, multiple orcas in the Puget Sound were observed wearing dead salmon-like hats.
• 18:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: I may think that's probably a coincidence.
• 18:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: That a dead salmon or two just happened to drift through the water and land on an orcas head.
• 18:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: But now, this was a deliberate fashion choice.
• 18:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: Biologists observed that dead salmon trend begun by a female orca that dimmed, spread like a viral challenge through two other birds.
• 18:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: After about six weeks, the jump got old and Oracle stopped putting salmon on their heads.
• 18:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you tried to bring the trend back the next summer, but failed to spark interest.
• 18:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: Just as the internet's graveyard is full of old names, so too do Orca's discard and move on from their cultural fax.
• 19:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: Researchers have also observed other unique behaviors such as Orca's residing near Vancouver Island that engage in greeting ceremonies in which Orca's lineup and two opposing rows before tumbling together into a killer whale mosh pit.
• 19:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: They also enjoy rubbing beaches where they scratch their bellies on a smooth pebble beach on the island.
• 19:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: Scientists have also observed near human-like behavior, such as the hosting of a funeral.
• 19:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm not joking.
• 19:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: Orcas kept the carcass of one of their pod members of float on the tip of their noses for several days, and an act that can't amourning.
• 19:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now that is a burial at sea.
• 19:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: Ultimately, those scientists still aren't sure exactly what's driving the Orcas aggressive behavior towards boats.
• 19:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: What remains most concerning, however, is just how dangerous these interactions are for both humans and orcas.
• 19:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: Tragically, senses behavior began in 2024 orcas belonging to the Iberian sub-opulation have perished.
• 20:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now it has not been proven these premature deaths were the result of a boat collision.
• 20:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: It seems likely that this behavior is causing the orcas to get more daring with humans,
• 20:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: putting them at greater risk.
• 20:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: And these deaths were a serious blow to the already endangered Iberian orca sub-population which, according to its last census in 2011, only amounted to 39 Iberian orcas.
• 20:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: Unfortunately there's no way for humans to change the orcas behavior and it may take a while for it to pass out of the orcas culture.
• 20:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know what's easier to influence though?
• 20:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: Human behavior.
• 20:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: So boats are now warned to steer well away if any workers are sighted nearby.
• 20:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: And to defend themselves, it's recommended that crews sprinkled 10 to 20 pounds of sand in the water around the rudder to confuse the orcas.
• 20:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: Wait, sand?
• 20:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, because orcas rely on sonar rather than sight to locate the ship's rudder.
• 20:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: The pouring sand around the rudder causes the sound waves to scatter amongst the solid particles confusing the orcas as to where the ship's rudder actually is.
• 21:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: Banging pots and pans on deck also helps discombobulate approaching orcas.
• 21:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: With any luck this trend will fall off like the salmon hat trender literally any dumb TikTok challenge.
• 21:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: I still don't understand why every 12 year old was obsessed with bottle flips.
• 21:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I really am just that old.
• 21:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: But for all the recent focus on Orcas, we seem to have forgotten about a much larger threat in the water.
• 21:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now, movie dick is possibly one of the most famous American novels telling the tale of when a ship was sunk by a giant white whale.
• 21:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: But did you know the book is based on a real story?
• 21:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, the world-renowned novel is based on the sinking.
• 21:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: real life as a ship in 1820.
• 21:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: We may think of whales as gentle giants in the 21st century, but back in the 18th and 19th centuries, whale hunting was big business.
• 22:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: Sparm whales were especially in demand as a special kind of oil could be obtained from their head cavities.
• 22:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: This waxy oil is known as spermacety and is why these humongous beasts are now
• 22:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: These oil sacks are used by the whale to help adjust its buoyancy when it dives over 6,000 feet deep into the ocean after its favorite prey, giant squid.
• 22:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: But sadly for the whales, this oil could also be used for illumination and machine lubrication during the industrial revolution, which put it in popular demand and drove up the business for sperm whale hunting.
• 22:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: Sound familiar?
• 22:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: You can tell that James Cameron clearly took some inspiration from the Sparmwell Wikipedia page.
• 22:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: First, Puka Hottis, now this, come on man, next should be making another Titanic film.
• 23:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: Anyway, before Sparmwell's were haunted by humans, there only natural predator was, you guessed it, killer whales.
• 23:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: To defend themselves against killer whales, Sparmwell's
• 23:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: they'd then lash out at the Orcas with their jaws or tails, and while this kept Orcas at bay it wasn't an effective strategy against wheeling ships and being stationary made them even easier to hunt.
• 23:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: By forming a large circle the whales made themselves vulnerable to attacks from above with our pooms, but then there was a sudden shift in the whales behavior.
• 23:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: But according to oil fishing logs, the hunts became less and less successful, sometime in the 19th century.
• 23:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: Eventually, the Whaler's yield was reduced by more than half in this man of two years with a reported drop of 58% in successful sperm whale hunts.
• 23:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: This was odd, as typically humans became better in hunting a favorite prey over time, with sophisticated technology and techniques being developed for the task.
• 24:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: But what the whalers didn't predict was that the sperm whales would outsmart them.
• 24:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: Researchers now believe that the whales actually learned how to avoid the whalers and shared this information across the ocean.
• 24:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: The sperm whales developed a new strategy of quickly swimming up current whenever they detected a hunting vessel.
• 24:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: The whaling robots were too slow to chase after the whales against the flow of water allowing them to escape.
• 24:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: Just like other whale species, sperm whales are highly socialized animals, they're able to communicate with one another over great distances in the ocean through sonar clicks.
• 24:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: These sonar clicks are so powerful that in close enough proximity, they can blow out a diverse eardrums or vibrate a person's organs to death.
• 24:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: Divers have even reported partial for paralysis after experiencing these sonar clicks.
• 24:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: Jeez, and I thought whale song was meant to be relaxing.
• 24:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like other whales, sperm whale culture is also, metrolinial.
• 25:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: And information about wheeling ships may have been passed on in the same way will matriarch share knowledge about feeding ground locations.
• 25:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: sperm whales also possess the largest brain on the planet weighing in at a staggering 20 pounds.
• 25:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: So it's not hard to imagine how they figured out how they were being hunted and how to prevent this by developing such a simple yet sophisticated strategy.
• 25:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: But the whales weren't strict pacifists either, and some cases the whales attack the boats instead by ramming them with their gigantic 20-foot-long heads.
• 25:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is what happened in the case of the real-life albino-spir-welded attack and sunk the Essex whaling ship that coming the inspiration for the classic novel Moby Dick.
• 25:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: So if there's any lesson to be learned, don't mess with whales.
• 25:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: When you're sailing in the ocean, you're in there domain.
• 25:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: And sometimes even the friendliest well can have bad timing, such as one white whale that accidentally ended up launching itself onto a yacht off Cape Town in 2010.
• 26:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: Scientists suspect the whale was being playful but miscalculated how close it was to the boat.
• 26:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: who are well, he was just trying to be nice but ended up coming across as a real movie dick.
• 26:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: Have you gained a whole new respect for Wales?
• 26:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: Which hunting technique impressed you the most?
• 26:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: And have you ever seen one in the wild?
• 26:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: Let us know on social media and thanks for listening.