The orca, or killer whale, is a toothed whale and the largest member of the oceanic dolphin family. It is the only extant species in the genus Orcinus and is recognizable by its black-and-white patterned body. A cosmopolitan species, they are found in diverse marine environments, from Arctic to Antarctic regions to tropical seas.
Orcinus is a genus of Delphinidae, the family of carnivorous marine mammals known as dolphins. It includes the largest delphinid species, Orcinus orca, known as the orca or killer whale. Two extinct species are recognised, Orcinus paleorca and O. citoniensis, describing fossilised remains of the genus. The other extinct species O. meyeri is disputed.
Cetacean surfacing behaviour is a grouping of movement types that cetaceans make at the water's surface in addition to breathing. Cetaceans have developed and use surface behaviours for many functions such as display, feeding and communication. All regularly observed members of the order Cetacea, including whales, dolphins and porpoises, show a range of surfacing behaviours.
Paul Spong is a New Zealand-born Canadian cetologist and neuroscientist. He has been researching orcas in British Columbia since 1967, and is credited with increasing public awareness of whaling, through his involvement with Greenpeace.
Namu was a male orca unintentionally captured in 1965 from the C1 Pod of the northern resident community. He was the first captive orca to perform with a human in the water. He was the subject of much media attention, including a starring role in the 1966 film Namu, the Killer Whale. Namu's captivity introduced thousands of people to orcas, and soon aquariums all over the world sought to establish captive orcas in their parks.
Carousel feeding is a cooperative hunting method used by Norwegian orcas to capture wintering Norwegian spring-spawning herring. The term carousel feeding was first used to describe a similar hunting behaviour in bottlenose dolphins in the Black Sea. There are two main phases of carousel feeding in orcas, the herding phase and the feeding phase. In the herding phase the orcas surround a school of herring and herd them into a tight ball. They tighten the ball by blowing bubbles, flashing their white underside and slapping their tails on the surface. They move the ball of herring toward the surface of the water before initiating the feeding phase. During the feeding phase several orcas begin to eat while the others continue herding the fish to maintain the ball. The feeding orcas whip their tails into the ball to stun and kill several herring at a time. The dead and stunned herring are then consumed and their heads and spines discarded.
Springer, officially named A73, is a wild orca from the Northern Resident Community of orcas, which frequents the waters off the northern part of Vancouver Island every summer. In January 2002, Springer, then a calf developmentally equivalent to a human toddler, was discovered alone and emaciated some 250 miles from the territory of her family. Experts identified Springer by her vocal calls that are specific to her family, or "pod," and by examining photographs of her eye patch. They were also able to determine where Springer's pod was currently located.
Dozens of orcas are held in captivity for breeding or performance purposes. The practice of capturing and displaying orcas in exhibitions began in the 1960s, and they soon became popular attractions at public aquariums and aquatic theme parks due to their intelligence, trainability, striking appearance, playfulness, and sheer size. As of 24 March 2024, around 55 orcas are in captivity worldwide, 33 of which were captive-born. At that time, there were 18 orcas in the SeaWorld parks.
A4 pod is a killer whale family in British Columbia. As of March 2013, it consists of three matrilines and 15 members and is the family of Springer, the first orca to be successfully reintroduced to the wild after being handled by humans. A4 pod is part of the northern resident orcas found in coastal waters ranging from mid-Vancouver Island to southeastern Alaska up through Haida Gwaii. The community is made up of three clans known as A, G and R clans, each possessing a distinctive dialect and consisting of several related pods. A4 pod belongs to the biggest clan, A clan.
Captured in 1964, Moby Doll was the first orca to survive in captivity for more than two days, and the second to be displayed in a public aquarium exhibit. The availability, for the first time, of an orca that could be studied at close quarters alive initiated pioneering research. From a recording of Moby Doll's calls, he was years later identified as a member of J Pod of the southern resident orcas.
The southern resident orcas, also known as the southern resident killer whales (SRKW), are the smallest of four communities of the exclusively fish-eating ecotype of orca in the northeast Pacific Ocean. The southern resident orcas form a closed society with no emigration or dispersal of individuals, and no gene flow with other orca populations. The fish-eating ecotype was historically given the name 'resident,' but other ecotypes named 'transient' and 'offshore' are also resident in the same area.
Alexandra Bryant Hubbard Morton is an American and Canadian marine biologist best known for her 30-year study of wild killer whales in the Broughton Archipelago in British Columbia. Since the 1990s, her work has shifted toward the study of the impact of salmon farming on Canadian wild salmon.
Bremer Marine Park is a marine park adjacent to Bremer Bay, on the south coast of Western Australia. It has an area of 4,472 km2 (1,727 sq mi) and reaches depths of 5,900 metres (19,400 ft). It was officially zoned as a national park under the Australian government's South West Marine Parks Management Plan (2018), and thus protects numerous species of flora and fauna. This marine biodiversity is the primary contributing factor to the area's popularity; ecotourism, whale watching, and other nature-related tourist activities bring various socioeconomic benefits to the local area and further solidify the importance of the marine park.
Granny, also known as J2, was a female orca of the J pod of southern resident orcas notable for her long life. Early estimates placed her birth in 1911, putting her at 105 years old at the time of her death. However, this estimate was later theorized to have been based on mistaken information and more recent studies put her at 65–80 years old. If she was 105, she would have been the oldest known orca at the time of her death. Granny lived in the northeast Pacific Ocean and coastal bays of Washington state and British Columbia. She was last seen on October 12, 2016, and was considered deceased by The Center for Whale Research in January 2017.
Animal faith is the study of animal behaviours that suggest proto-religious faith. It is commonly believed that religion and faith are unique to humans, largely due to the typical dictionary definition of the word religion requiring belief in a deity, which has not been observed in non-human animals. However, by using a "non-anthropocentric and non-anthropomorphic prototype definition" of religion, such as the one developed by James Harrod in his 2011 work "A Trans-Species Definition of Religion," scientists can study animal religious practices and behaviors.
J50 Scarlet was a juvenile female member of the endangered southern resident orca community in British Columbia and Washington state. She was born near South Pender Island, British Columbia around Christmas Day, 2014. In late June, 2018, Scarlet appeared emaciated and was feared near death. Another calf died in late July, 2018 leaving Scarlet "represent[ing] the future" of the declining Southern Residents, thought to number 75, cut off from their food supply of Puget Sound chinook salmon, themselves listed as a threatened species. Scarlet's mother, known as J16, was born in 1972.
Tahlequah, also known as J35, is an orca of the southern resident community in the northeastern Pacific Ocean. She has given birth to three known offspring, a male (Notch) in 2010, a female (Tali) in 2018, and another male (Phoenix) in 2020. Her second calf, Tali, died shortly after birth and J35 carried her body for 17 days in an apparent show of grief that attracted international attention.
The Yukon Harbor orca capture operation was the first planned, deliberate trapping of a large group of orcas. 15 southern resident orcas were trapped by Ted Griffin and his Seattle Public Aquarium party on 15 February 1967, in Yukon Harbor on the west side of Puget Sound. The first four orcas that had been taken into captivity had been captured singly, and mostly opportunistically. Those four were named Wanda, Moby Doll, Namu, and Shamu—who was then the only surviving one. Through them, interest in orcas had escalated.
Beginning in 2020, a subpopulation of orcas began ramming boats and attacking their rudders in waters off the Iberian Peninsula. The behaviour has generally been directed towards slow-moving, medium-sized sailboats in the Strait of Gibraltar and off the Portuguese, Moroccan and Galician coasts. The novel behaviour is thought to have spread between different pods, with over 500 reported interactions from 2020 to 2023 attributed to fifteen different individual orcas.
The waters of the Salish Sea, on the west coast of North America, are home to several ecologically distinct populations of orcas. The area supports three major ecotypes of orcas: northern residents, southern residents, and transients. A fourth ecotype, the offshore orcas, occasionally venture into nearshore waters. Little to no interaction occurs between the different ecotypes. Resident and transient orcas have not been observed interbreeding, although occasional brief interactions occur.
