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These orcas have been trying to feed people, new research shows (www.seattletimes.com)

submitted 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) by thelastaxolotl@hexbear.net to c/earth@hexbear.net

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Wild orcas on more than 30 occasions in four oceans have attempted to share their prey with people, potentially to develop relationships with humans, researchers have found.

In each of the instances recorded over two decades, orcas approached a person within a length of the orca’s body, and dropped freshly-hunted prey in front of the human, then waited for a response, according to a paper reporting the behavior published Monday in the Journal of Comparative Psychology.

Orcas of every age tried to share their prey, and just about everything was on the menu: sea otter, harbor seal, common murre, gray whale, green turtle, eagle ray, starfish, jellyfish, on and on.

Orcas are the ocean’s top predator, and their brains are second only to modern humans in terms of their size in relation to their body. Their capacity for advanced communications and cognitive, social and emotional intelligence is well known. Prey sharing is common in orca culture.

So just what are the orcas doing, offering food to people?

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[–] CeliacMcCarthy@hexbear.net 36 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (5 children)

What if the catalyst or the key to understanding creation lay somewhere in the immense mind of the whale?

Some species go for months without eating anything. Just completely idle. So they have this incredible mental apparatus and no one has the least notion what they do with it. Lilly says that the most logical supposition, based on physiological and ecological evidence, is that they contemplate the universe.

Suppose God came back from wherever it is he’s been and asked us smilingly if we’d figure it out yet. Suppose he wanted to know if it had finally occurred to us to ask the whale. And then he sort of looked around and he said: “By the way, where are the whales?”

And we said: "Well, we uh..." And he said: "Yes?" And we said, "Well. We used some of them for axle-grease and fertilizer and the rest of them we fed to the dogs."

[–] Enjoyer_of_Games@hexbear.net 6 points 4 days ago

which Douglas Adams book is this from?

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