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MLA Full: | "Is The Orca Uprising Upon Us?" YouTube, uploaded by SciShow, 7 September 2023, www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIGnGGGaeeE. |
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In 2023, a whole bunch of orcas started attacking boats off the coast of Spain. Was this the first battle in an all-out interspecies war? Well, probably not. But it's a pretty neat look into how trends come and go in orca pods - like salmon hats.
Hosted by: Stefan Chin (he/him)
----------
Support SciShow by becoming a patron on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/scishow
----------
Huge thanks go to the following Patreon supporters for helping us keep SciShow free for everyone forever: Adam Brainard, Alex Hackman, Ash, Bryan Cloer, charles george, Chris Mackey, Chris Peters, Christoph Schwanke, Christopher R Boucher, Dr. Melvin Sanicas, Harrison Mills, Jaap Westera, Jason A Saslow, Jeffrey Mckishen, Jeremy Mattern, Kevin Bealer, Matt Curls, Michelle Dove, Piya Shedden, Rizwan Kassim, Sam Lutfi
----------
Looking for SciShow elsewhere on the internet?
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#SciShow #science #education #learning #complexly
----------
Sources:
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20230626-why-are-orcas-suddenly-ramming-boats
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/mms.12947
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/orca-rams-into-yacht-near-scotland-behavior-may-be-spreading-180982429/
https://www.seattleaquarium.org/sites/default/files/files/Orca%20curriculum_07-2016-2.pdf
https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1709475114
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0006320704001338
http://freqstats.marineland.fr/dl/2012-Experimental-evidence-for-action-imitation-in-killer-whales.pdf
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/abs/10.1098/rspb.2010.1142
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/mila.12388
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/understanding-orca-culture-12494696/
https://www.kuow.org/stories/a-bouncing-baby-orca-boy-good-news-from-the-salish-sea
https://open.library.ubc.ca/soa/cIRcle/collections/ubctheses/831/items/1.0099652
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00114-010-0657-z
https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/FFB6CDC9F75754439FCF345FD942089E/S0140525X0100396Xa.pdf/culture_in_whales_and_dolphins.pdf
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/from-ramming-boats-to-hunting-great-white-sharks-five-astounding-orca-behaviors-180982510/
Image Sources:
https://tinyurl.com/52eb3ben
https://tinyurl.com/2p832rru
https://tinyurl.com/3ybsj6fp
https://tinyurl.com/bddduabz
https://tinyurl.com/27bwx6b4
https://tinyurl.com/2phtd3ar
https://tinyurl.com/4bpdukf6
https://tinyurl.com/3jd6pbn5
https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/killer-whale-orcinus-orca-adult-royalty-free-image/1253825175?phrase=orca&adppopup=true
https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/killer-whale-orcinus-orca-adults-and-calf-leaping-royalty-free-image/1254529628?phrase=young+orca&adppopup=true
https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/video/aerial-view-family-orca-killer-whale-killing-on-sperm-stock-footage/1487749327?adppopup=true
https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/video/group-of-killer-whales-swimming-together-showing-their-stock-footage/1296085221?adppopup=true
https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/video/orcas-killer-whales-swimming-stock-footage/629709176?adppopup=true
https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/three-orcas-or-killer-whales-in-a-row-royalty-free-image/1136890610?phrase=orca&adppopup=true
https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/video/two-cavapoo-dogs-compete-and-chase-the-same-ball-in-a-stock-footage/1360896175?adppopup=true
https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/portrait-of-indian-woman-with-colored-face-dancing-royalty-free-image/471366604?phrase=culture&adppopup=true
https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/video/pebbly-sea-bottom-stock-footage/1416013974?adppopup=true
https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/video/islands-in-the-salish-sea-on-a-sunny-day-stock-footage/846755466?adppopup=true
https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/video/orcas-are-spyhopping-stock-footage/1410261904?adppopup=true
https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/video/orcas-swimming-close-to-the-camera-with-rest-of-a-sea-stock-footage/1295059686?adppopup=true
https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/video/group-of-orcas-killer-whales-swimming-together-close-to-stock-footage/1294925903?adppopup=true
https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/video/pod-of-orcas-stock-footage/1411788940?adppopup=true
https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/killer-whale-royalty-free-image/1306635380?phrase=killer+whales&adppopup=true
https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/video/of-killer-whales-swimming-at-the-surface-aerial-view-stock-footage/1295062081?adppopup=true
https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/mother-and-her-calf-royalty-free-image/139879291?phrase=orca+calf&adppopup=true
In 2023, a whole bunch of orcas started attacking boats off the coast of Spain. Was this the first battle in an all-out interspecies war? Well, probably not. But it's a pretty neat look into how trends come and go in orca pods - like salmon hats.
Hosted by: Stefan Chin (he/him)
----------
Support SciShow by becoming a patron on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/scishow
----------
Huge thanks go to the following Patreon supporters for helping us keep SciShow free for everyone forever: Adam Brainard, Alex Hackman, Ash, Bryan Cloer, charles george, Chris Mackey, Chris Peters, Christoph Schwanke, Christopher R Boucher, Dr. Melvin Sanicas, Harrison Mills, Jaap Westera, Jason A Saslow, Jeffrey Mckishen, Jeremy Mattern, Kevin Bealer, Matt Curls, Michelle Dove, Piya Shedden, Rizwan Kassim, Sam Lutfi
----------
Looking for SciShow elsewhere on the internet?
SciShow Tangents Podcast: https://scishow-tangents.simplecast.com/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@scishow
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/scishow
Instagram: http://instagram.com/thescishow
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/scishow
#SciShow #science #education #learning #complexly
----------
Sources:
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20230626-why-are-orcas-suddenly-ramming-boats
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/mms.12947
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/orca-rams-into-yacht-near-scotland-behavior-may-be-spreading-180982429/
https://www.seattleaquarium.org/sites/default/files/files/Orca%20curriculum_07-2016-2.pdf
https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1709475114
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0006320704001338
http://freqstats.marineland.fr/dl/2012-Experimental-evidence-for-action-imitation-in-killer-whales.pdf
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/abs/10.1098/rspb.2010.1142
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/mila.12388
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/understanding-orca-culture-12494696/
https://www.kuow.org/stories/a-bouncing-baby-orca-boy-good-news-from-the-salish-sea
https://open.library.ubc.ca/soa/cIRcle/collections/ubctheses/831/items/1.0099652
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00114-010-0657-z
https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/FFB6CDC9F75754439FCF345FD942089E/S0140525X0100396Xa.pdf/culture_in_whales_and_dolphins.pdf
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/from-ramming-boats-to-hunting-great-white-sharks-five-astounding-orca-behaviors-180982510/
Image Sources:
https://tinyurl.com/52eb3ben
https://tinyurl.com/2p832rru
https://tinyurl.com/3ybsj6fp
https://tinyurl.com/bddduabz
https://tinyurl.com/27bwx6b4
https://tinyurl.com/2phtd3ar
https://tinyurl.com/4bpdukf6
https://tinyurl.com/3jd6pbn5
https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/killer-whale-orcinus-orca-adult-royalty-free-image/1253825175?phrase=orca&adppopup=true
https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/killer-whale-orcinus-orca-adults-and-calf-leaping-royalty-free-image/1254529628?phrase=young+orca&adppopup=true
https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/video/aerial-view-family-orca-killer-whale-killing-on-sperm-stock-footage/1487749327?adppopup=true
https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/video/group-of-killer-whales-swimming-together-showing-their-stock-footage/1296085221?adppopup=true
https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/video/orcas-killer-whales-swimming-stock-footage/629709176?adppopup=true
https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/three-orcas-or-killer-whales-in-a-row-royalty-free-image/1136890610?phrase=orca&adppopup=true
https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/video/two-cavapoo-dogs-compete-and-chase-the-same-ball-in-a-stock-footage/1360896175?adppopup=true
https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/portrait-of-indian-woman-with-colored-face-dancing-royalty-free-image/471366604?phrase=culture&adppopup=true
https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/video/pebbly-sea-bottom-stock-footage/1416013974?adppopup=true
https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/video/islands-in-the-salish-sea-on-a-sunny-day-stock-footage/846755466?adppopup=true
https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/video/orcas-are-spyhopping-stock-footage/1410261904?adppopup=true
https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/video/orcas-swimming-close-to-the-camera-with-rest-of-a-sea-stock-footage/1295059686?adppopup=true
https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/video/group-of-orcas-killer-whales-swimming-together-close-to-stock-footage/1294925903?adppopup=true
https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/video/pod-of-orcas-stock-footage/1411788940?adppopup=true
https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/killer-whale-royalty-free-image/1306635380?phrase=killer+whales&adppopup=true
https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/video/of-killer-whales-swimming-at-the-surface-aerial-view-stock-footage/1295062081?adppopup=true
https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/mother-and-her-calf-royalty-free-image/139879291?phrase=orca+calf&adppopup=true
In 1987, an orca in the Puget Sound was seen sporting an unusual new accessory: a dead salmon, worn on her head like a hat.
The behavior started out with just one orca balancing a fish corpse on her head, and it spread to others, even into other orca pods. Over time, the behavior died out, so you probably won’t spot any fish-wearing orcas out on a whale watch anytime soon.
But the whole thing was a charming, if smelly, case study in how seemingly random behaviors can become trendy in orca pods. But decades later, orca trends started getting dangerous. [♪ INTRO] It’s the early 2020s, and along with everything else going on in the world, orcas in the Strait of Gibraltar have been sinking boats. They’re targeting specific kinds of boats, like sailboats, and they seem to know how to do the most damage; by attacking the rudder.
Now, an orca whacking into a boat occasionally is nothing new, but the number of these interactions seems to be increasing. In 2020, there were only 52 recorded incidents of orcas purportedly attacking boats in and near the Strait of Gibraltar. But by 2023, there were as many as 207 recorded interactions, which sank at least three yachts.
In 2023, an orca rammed a yacht in the North Sea, near Scotland, which is far enough from Spain and Portugal for people to worry that the behavior is spreading. But research shows that orcas might not be attacking at all. A recent study found that when wild orcas were presented with fake rudders, their behavior was a lot more playful than aggressive.
It looked more like they were just pushing the rudders with their noses until they broke, rather than launching an all-out attack. That might be cold comfort to anyone sitting on the deck of a boat that’s getting rammed by orcas, but it does provide some insight into why the orcas might be fiddling with these rudders at all. Because they see their friends doing it and it’s fun.
To the orcas, pushing rudders until they break is possibly just a cool new game. Unfortunately for us, though, orcas weigh between three to seven metric tonnes, the game is a little less funny to us. There are some theories about how this game got started.
The first is that this behavior started as a trauma response. It’s been suggested that an individual called White Gladis might have been the first orca to start breaking rudders, possibly due to a traumatic experience with fishing lines. Other orcas in her pod started mimicking her, and the behavior may have become a kind of game, even among orcas that might not have the same negative experiences with boats.
And the second theory is that it was all fun and games from the beginning. Young orcas are naturally curious, and they might just be interested in ships enough to make up a game that became trendy. And while we don’t know which theory is true, researchers expect that this trend will go the way of human trends like pet rocks or silly bands.
But while it sticks around, it gives us an opportunity to learn about orca intelligence and culture. Yes, culture. Because even though we tend to think of culture as something that only belongs to humans, it turns out orcas have a lot of cultural traits, too.
See, orcas are capable of what’s known as action imitation, which is the ability to copy behaviors. That might not sound like much, but in the animal kingdom, action imitation is a strong sign of intelligence. It means that orcas can learn how to do something just by watching others do it, rather than figuring it out for themselves.
Action imitation is considered one of the most important adaptive benefits of sociality, and has been observed in some birds, apes, dogs, and marine mammals like dolphins and orcas. Not only can orcas imitate actions, they have large brains, advanced social systems, and high trainability, which lets them participate in some pretty complex coordinated behaviors, like hunting in a group. But action imitation isn’t just a sign of intelligence.
It’s even been thought that the ability to imitate actions is one of the most important drivers of culture. See, cultures can be defined in three different ways. The first is that information or behavior is acquired through social learning, something that action imitation definitely helps with.
Lots of animals can do this, so it isn’t necessarily earth-shattering that orcas can do it, too. The second definition of culture has to do with traditions. Basically, you need to have one or more socially-learned behaviors that are shared by members of a group, but not shared by other groups in the same species, and we’ve seen this in orcas for decades.
In British Columbia, one resident orca pod likes rubbing themselves on pebbly beaches to scratch their skin, a behavior that isn’t shared by any other resident orca pods there. And in the Salish Sea, orcas tend to, for lack of a better word, frolic. They slap their fins and jump up into the air way more than any other pods do.
And orca pods eat different types of food. This has nothing to do with what’s available, because different pods living in the same area will have different preferred foods. Some orca pods have complex greeting ceremonies, and depending on where the orcas are from, their vocalizations have distinct “accents”, just like humans.
Even mating can be defined by pod culture. Orcas tend to prefer other orcas with different sounding calls to themselves, most likely to avoid inbreeding. Which brings us to the third definition of culture, which has to do with passing down behaviors to the next generation, leading to the accumulation and improvement of cultural traits over time.
And while the amount of knowledge orcas pass down might be up for debate, orcas are matrilineal, which means they travel with their mother’s pod. The oldest female in a pod is the matriarch, and since orcas can live for more than 60 years, she acquires and passes down a lot of knowledge to the group over generations. During the Gibraltar incidents, both groups of orcas that were spotted ramming boats had matriarchs present.
In White Gladis’s pod, her mom came along to observe the other orcas, although she didn’t interact with the boats themselves. White Gladis, her younger siblings, and her calves were the ones taking part in the interaction. In fact, aside from the pod in Scotland, which seems to have picked this behavior up, most of the recent interactions with boats were caused by the same few individual orcas, who probably learned the behavior from each other.
And since behavioral observations suggest the orcas are just playing around, it’s starting to seem more like this trend is only taking off in certain orca cliques, and it’s not some kind of “orca-strated” revolution. It wouldn’t even be the first time orcas have invented new games. Young orcas have been observed grabbing on to the ends of older animals and letting themselves be dragged along for the ride.
And like we said before, they’ve even worn fish corpses on their heads as accessories. But those trends come and go. So rather than bracing for an oceanic uprising, it’s more likely that we’ll just need to wait for the orcas to get bored and move on to the next big thing.
Maybe mood rings. And hey, if all this talk of fashion trends is making you rethink your own closet, we’ve got just the thing to help you zhuzh up your wardrobe. Our brand new bucket hats feature an adorable orca wearing a slightly-less adorable dead salmon as its own hat, which is pretty meta.
And if you wanna join the club (and all the cool kids are doing it) you can head on over to the DFTBA.com/scishow to pre-order one, while they’re still trendy. [♪ OUTRO]
The behavior started out with just one orca balancing a fish corpse on her head, and it spread to others, even into other orca pods. Over time, the behavior died out, so you probably won’t spot any fish-wearing orcas out on a whale watch anytime soon.
But the whole thing was a charming, if smelly, case study in how seemingly random behaviors can become trendy in orca pods. But decades later, orca trends started getting dangerous. [♪ INTRO] It’s the early 2020s, and along with everything else going on in the world, orcas in the Strait of Gibraltar have been sinking boats. They’re targeting specific kinds of boats, like sailboats, and they seem to know how to do the most damage; by attacking the rudder.
Now, an orca whacking into a boat occasionally is nothing new, but the number of these interactions seems to be increasing. In 2020, there were only 52 recorded incidents of orcas purportedly attacking boats in and near the Strait of Gibraltar. But by 2023, there were as many as 207 recorded interactions, which sank at least three yachts.
In 2023, an orca rammed a yacht in the North Sea, near Scotland, which is far enough from Spain and Portugal for people to worry that the behavior is spreading. But research shows that orcas might not be attacking at all. A recent study found that when wild orcas were presented with fake rudders, their behavior was a lot more playful than aggressive.
It looked more like they were just pushing the rudders with their noses until they broke, rather than launching an all-out attack. That might be cold comfort to anyone sitting on the deck of a boat that’s getting rammed by orcas, but it does provide some insight into why the orcas might be fiddling with these rudders at all. Because they see their friends doing it and it’s fun.
To the orcas, pushing rudders until they break is possibly just a cool new game. Unfortunately for us, though, orcas weigh between three to seven metric tonnes, the game is a little less funny to us. There are some theories about how this game got started.
The first is that this behavior started as a trauma response. It’s been suggested that an individual called White Gladis might have been the first orca to start breaking rudders, possibly due to a traumatic experience with fishing lines. Other orcas in her pod started mimicking her, and the behavior may have become a kind of game, even among orcas that might not have the same negative experiences with boats.
And the second theory is that it was all fun and games from the beginning. Young orcas are naturally curious, and they might just be interested in ships enough to make up a game that became trendy. And while we don’t know which theory is true, researchers expect that this trend will go the way of human trends like pet rocks or silly bands.
But while it sticks around, it gives us an opportunity to learn about orca intelligence and culture. Yes, culture. Because even though we tend to think of culture as something that only belongs to humans, it turns out orcas have a lot of cultural traits, too.
See, orcas are capable of what’s known as action imitation, which is the ability to copy behaviors. That might not sound like much, but in the animal kingdom, action imitation is a strong sign of intelligence. It means that orcas can learn how to do something just by watching others do it, rather than figuring it out for themselves.
Action imitation is considered one of the most important adaptive benefits of sociality, and has been observed in some birds, apes, dogs, and marine mammals like dolphins and orcas. Not only can orcas imitate actions, they have large brains, advanced social systems, and high trainability, which lets them participate in some pretty complex coordinated behaviors, like hunting in a group. But action imitation isn’t just a sign of intelligence.
It’s even been thought that the ability to imitate actions is one of the most important drivers of culture. See, cultures can be defined in three different ways. The first is that information or behavior is acquired through social learning, something that action imitation definitely helps with.
Lots of animals can do this, so it isn’t necessarily earth-shattering that orcas can do it, too. The second definition of culture has to do with traditions. Basically, you need to have one or more socially-learned behaviors that are shared by members of a group, but not shared by other groups in the same species, and we’ve seen this in orcas for decades.
In British Columbia, one resident orca pod likes rubbing themselves on pebbly beaches to scratch their skin, a behavior that isn’t shared by any other resident orca pods there. And in the Salish Sea, orcas tend to, for lack of a better word, frolic. They slap their fins and jump up into the air way more than any other pods do.
And orca pods eat different types of food. This has nothing to do with what’s available, because different pods living in the same area will have different preferred foods. Some orca pods have complex greeting ceremonies, and depending on where the orcas are from, their vocalizations have distinct “accents”, just like humans.
Even mating can be defined by pod culture. Orcas tend to prefer other orcas with different sounding calls to themselves, most likely to avoid inbreeding. Which brings us to the third definition of culture, which has to do with passing down behaviors to the next generation, leading to the accumulation and improvement of cultural traits over time.
And while the amount of knowledge orcas pass down might be up for debate, orcas are matrilineal, which means they travel with their mother’s pod. The oldest female in a pod is the matriarch, and since orcas can live for more than 60 years, she acquires and passes down a lot of knowledge to the group over generations. During the Gibraltar incidents, both groups of orcas that were spotted ramming boats had matriarchs present.
In White Gladis’s pod, her mom came along to observe the other orcas, although she didn’t interact with the boats themselves. White Gladis, her younger siblings, and her calves were the ones taking part in the interaction. In fact, aside from the pod in Scotland, which seems to have picked this behavior up, most of the recent interactions with boats were caused by the same few individual orcas, who probably learned the behavior from each other.
And since behavioral observations suggest the orcas are just playing around, it’s starting to seem more like this trend is only taking off in certain orca cliques, and it’s not some kind of “orca-strated” revolution. It wouldn’t even be the first time orcas have invented new games. Young orcas have been observed grabbing on to the ends of older animals and letting themselves be dragged along for the ride.
And like we said before, they’ve even worn fish corpses on their heads as accessories. But those trends come and go. So rather than bracing for an oceanic uprising, it’s more likely that we’ll just need to wait for the orcas to get bored and move on to the next big thing.
Maybe mood rings. And hey, if all this talk of fashion trends is making you rethink your own closet, we’ve got just the thing to help you zhuzh up your wardrobe. Our brand new bucket hats feature an adorable orca wearing a slightly-less adorable dead salmon as its own hat, which is pretty meta.
And if you wanna join the club (and all the cool kids are doing it) you can head on over to the DFTBA.com/scishow to pre-order one, while they’re still trendy. [♪ OUTRO]