Jared Towers looked on his research vessel twice on his research vessel, looking at the killer whales near the coast of Vancouver Island, when the orcas placed their prey directly in front of him and his colleagues.
What he described as “rare” and awesome encounters led to a new study published in the peer-reviewed journal of comparative psychology, detailing the researchers’ experiences with killer whales, apparently sharing food with humans.
“We have a long history of interacting with other animals, trying to feed them and measuring their responses. But it is very rare for any wild predator to do the same to us,” said Towers, executive director of the research group Bay Cetology.
“This is actually the first report of any kind in the literature that documented the killer whale in these cases.”
Towers said he and his colleagues were marching when Orca appeared, triggering a second encounter in 2018. They stopped, watched it swim, and then appeared again, and released a freshly killed seal next to the boat.
“She could have dropped it off the stern or from the bow, but she put it directly in the middle of the boat next to us,” Tas said.
“We just sat there and watched the thing sink into the water for about 10 or 15 seconds until she made a circle and came back.”
After that, an encounter in 2015 involved a hole opening its mouth and freeing a dead ancient Mulleret, a straight seabird, directly next to the ship in the tower. He said Orca also floated its prey for a moment and then took it again.
“It puts us in a bit awe,” Tas said, adding that the two cases stood out in thousands of encounters with the killer whales he encountered around the world.
“That’s when I started thinking about the difference between these animals.”
The Tower and his colleagues began a survey that led to the publication of the study on Monday, which looked at 34 instances in which killer whales appeared to provide prey for humans.
The researchers want to make sure the study examines only cases where whales “interact with humans rather than vice chairs” and vice versa.
To include it in the study, whales must be directly approaching humans. The researchers believe that within five minutes before the interaction, people did not get between nearly 50 meters away.
The study shows that all but one situation was observed to wait for people to respond before recovering or giving up their prey.
“These are not mistakes. They are not like killer whales who accidentally give up food. They want to see how people react.”
This study does not rule out any selfish motivation behind behavior. But the Tower said he believes that the obvious prey sharing is “altruism” and “prosocial.”
Sharing food between relatives and other orcs is the basis of whales, and in trying to provide humans with prey, he said this could be an example of whales practicing cultural behavior or exploring human responsiveness abilities.
This week, orcas were found on the Cape Breton coast. Lobster fisherman Bernie Lamey told CBC that this was the first time he had seen the killer whale pods in the area.
“I think these cases may indeed be prosocial representatives of conscious learning, and these whales are trying their best to try and understand … who we are and how we interact with them in the environment,” Tas said.
Given the advanced cognitive ability and the social, collaborative nature of killer whales as a species, the researchers say, “Assuming any or all explanations of this behavior are possible.”
The whales in the study were transient visitors to the coastal areas of British Columbia and Alaska, the eastern tropical Pacific population of the California coast, and killer whales in New Zealand, central Argentina and throughout Norway. The study said all “product” events occurred between 2004 and 2024.
Orcas usually uses prey to engage in games, and the study acknowledges that 38% of prey sharing cases it examines appear to be included in the game. It says whales may have been using their prey to incite ways to play with humans.
But for several reasons, the researchers say the researchers do not consider the game to be the driver behind the obvious product.
Allison MacGillivary tells the moment she and her family discovered a killer whale swimming backwards on the coastline of western Vancouver.
Games often occur after whales meet nutritional needs, but when shared with humans, these products are all in about half of the encounters.
Most orcas in the study were prey that were often shared with other whales after prey that humans did not accept. In most cases, the duration of the interaction is no more than 30 seconds. By contrast, studies show that whales usually play more continuously.
The study concluded that whales have the ability and motivation to share food, for a variety of reasons that may include intellectual or emotional benefits.
It says: “Providing humans with objects can simultaneously include opportunities for killer whales to learn cultural behaviors, explore or recreate, so they can learn, manipulate or build relationships with us.”
Towers said he hopes the study provides people with an opportunity to see killer whales from a different perspective, develop curiosity about their ability to think, and “may even have some intellectual evolution in integration with us.”
Ta added that researchers strongly prevent people from accepting any prey provided by orcs, because both species may harm each other.
