Orcas are large, powerful aquatic apex predators. There have been incidents where orcas were perceived to attack humans in the wild, but such attacks are less common than those by captive orcas. [1] In captivity, there have been several non-fatal and four fatal attacks on humans since the 1970s. [2] Experts are divided as to whether the injuries and deaths were accidental or deliberate attempts to cause harm. [3] [4]
There are a few recorded cases of wild orcas "threatening" humans, but there have been no fatalities.
In the early 1910s, Scott's Terra Nova Expedition recorded that orcas had attempted to tip ice floes on which an expedition photographer and a sled dog team were standing. [5]
There are anecdotal reports that, c. 1955, an Inuk man fell prey to an orca entrapped by ice in Grand Suttie Bay (Foxe Basin, Canada). A pod of orcas (likely 10-12 animals) was trapped in a polynya, and a young man visited the site in spite of advice from elders to wait until the ice was strong enough. Two Inuit elders stated to a research team that one of the animals chased the young man, broke the ice under him, then killed and ate him. However, the researchers were not able to directly confirm this, as one of the elders clearly stated that he had not witnessed the event himself. The other elder did not clarify whether he had seen it happen. As the ice thickened, two to three whales were taken by Inuit hunters, and three more were harpooned but tore the lines (made of seal skin). The rest of the pod likely died of starvation or drowned.
In 1958, an orca attacked the fishing boat Tiger Shark after being struck with a harpoon off the coast of Long Island. The whale was able to get free and chased the vessel for some time. At one point he lifted the boat "clear out of the water". [6]
In September 1962 in Washington waters off the west side of San Juan Island, Marineland of the Pacific collector Frank Brocato lassoed a female salmon-eating southern resident orca. [7] When she and an accompanying male thumped his boat with their flukes, Brocato started shooting from his rifle, killing the female—the first of many southern residents to be killed in capture operations. Her body was towed to Bellingham to be rendered for dog food. [8]
On June 15, 1972, the hull of the 13-metre-long (43 ft) wooden schooner Lucette was damaged by a pod of orcas and sank approximately 320 kilometres (200 mi) west of the Galapagos Islands. Dougal Robertson and his family of five escaped to an inflatable life raft and a dinghy. [9] [10] [11] [12]
On September 9, 1972, [13] Californian surfer Hans Kretschmer reported being bitten by an orca at Point Sur; most maintain that this remains the only fairly well-documented instance of a wild orca biting a human. [14] [15] His wounds required 100 stitches. [15] [16]
On March 9, 1976, the Italian racing yacht Guia III was rammed and sunk by an orca off the coast of Brazil. The vessel was hit once by an individual out of a pod of four to five orcas. The crew of six successfully escaped to a liferaft. The whales showed no reaction to the escaping humans a few meters away from them. [6]
In 1989 American researcher Bernd Würsig published an article about having been attacked by an orca on a beach of the Valdes Peninsula. A single individual, possibly as big as 9 metres (30 ft), beached towards him while he was watching sea lions about 200 metres (650 ft) away from him in hopes of taking a photograph of an orca hunt. Dr Würsig ran up the beach after the animal missed him by about 1 metre. He speculated that the whale might have mistaken him for a seal. [17]
In August 2005, while swimming in four feet of water in Helm Bay, near Ketchikan, Alaska, a 12-year-old boy named Ellis Miller was bumped in the shoulder by a 7.6-metre (25 ft) transient orca. [14] [18] The boy was not bitten or injured in any way. The bay is frequented by harbor seals, and it is possible that the whale misidentified him as prey. [18]
During the filming of the third episode of the BBC documentary Frozen Planet (2011), a group of orcas were filmed trying to swamp the film crew's 5.5-metre (18 ft) zodiac boat with waves as they were filming. The crew had earlier taped the group hunting seals in the same fashion. It was not mentioned if any of the crew were hurt in the encounter. [19] [20] The crew described the orcas as being very tolerant of the film makers' presence. Over the course of 14 days they filmed over 20 different attacks on seals, many of which the film series producer Vanessa Berlowitz described as training exercises for the young calves in the group. [21] [22]
On February 10, 2014, a free diver in Horahora Estuary near Whangārei, New Zealand, was pulled down for over 40 seconds by an orca that grabbed a bag containing crayfish and urchins which was attached to his arm by a rope. The rope eventually came free. He then undid his weight belt and returned to the surface. He had lost all feeling in his arm and could no longer swim, but his cousin was nearby and helped him float to some rocks where the feeling in his arm returned. Local whale rescuer Jo Halliday thought the incident was more like a potential entanglement than an attack. She said, "I think it's been a pure accident and not an attack of any kind. I'd say the animal has panicked from the feel of the line and the man got dragged along with it.” [23] When the rope became undone, the orca did not attack but rather moved away. [24] [25] [23]
From 2020 to 2024, there were at least five hundred reports of orcas interacting with boats off the Atlantic coast of Spain and Portugal, an unusual and unprecedented behaviour. [26] Some of these interactions involved orcas touching or damaging boats. The nudging, biting and ramming attacks concentrated on the rudders of medium-size sailing vessels sailing at moderate speed, with some impacts on the hulls. A small group of orcas were believed to be responsible, with three juveniles which have been named black Gladis, white Gladis, and grey Gladis identified as present for most attacks. No people were injured. The Portuguese coastguard banned small sailing vessels from a region where several incidents had been reported. It is thought by some that the behavior was playful, rather than aggressive or vengeful. [27] However, Gibraltar-based marine biologist Eric Shaw argued that the orcas were displaying protective behaviors and were intentionally targeting the rudder with the understanding that it would immobilize the vessel, just as attacking the tail of a prey animal would immobilize it, a documented predation behavior. [28] [29] [30]
There have been many attacks on humans by captive orcas, with four fatalities; three by the same orca, Tilikum. [31]
While Tilikum has perhaps the most infamous reputation, there have been several other captive orcas that have repeatedly harmed people, intentionally or not. [87]
Many experts think these attacks are not malicious, but rather a case of play getting out of hand. Howard Garrett of the Orca Network disagrees. He argues the attacks are deliberate, though not in cold blood.
I was -- I had about 200 stitches from the waist down. I had lacerations and punctures.
Postmortem abrasions, laceration and avulsion of the scrotum with testes. Avulsion of the skin of the pubic area including the scrotal sac and testis, with the left testis separate.
Brancheau died Feb. 24, 2010, when an orca named Tilikum grabbed her by her Ponytail and pulled her underwater.
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