We're going back to the usual setup this week. I have not chosen a specific news article to go over with you
So we got feel good including UFOs because they make us feel good feel bad same amount of bad news
I don't think that any bad news has been added to it just in case that
No bad news is taking place. It's the class looked. Yeah. Oh, I got pretty sure this is bad. Is that a new one?
That's a new one feeling uncertain. Can't choose between good or bad feelings. I also haven't memorized these
I need to scroll down and read them as I go and we got feeling like science, you know, let's do a feel good
Feel good. Okay. Have we had an update on orcas recently? I think the last update would have been in the New Year's Eve episode
Let's go with it. They're my favorite guys right now. So this is on live science live science the debate continues
We refuse to look it up
How would you look it up though? And this one's titled orcas are learning terrifying new behaviors
Are they getting smarter or are they the regular amount of smart that they always were that was my addition to the title
If we just discredit how smart they were to begin with exactly we just underestimated the orcas
These are my new heroes of planet earth. I feel like they're here to avenge
something bad
billionaires from sinking boats and
feasting on shark livers to dining on whale tongue and tossing porpoises around for fun orcas are displaying some
Fascinating and sometimes terrifying behaviors this article is from October 22nd
2023 by Sasha pair for live life science in March 2019 researchers off the coast of southwestern, Australia
Witnessed a gruesome scene a dozen orcas ganging up on one of the biggest creatures on earth to kill it the orcas
Devoured huge chunks of flesh from the flanks of an adult blue whale which died an hour later
Oh, this is a sad story. This was the first ever documented case of orca on blue whale predation
But it wouldn't be the last in recent months orcas have been spotted abducting baby pilot whales and tearing open sharks to feast on
Their livers and off the coast of Spain in Portugal a small population of orcas has begun ramming and sinking boats
Are they like solely attacking sharks just for their livers in certain places? Yes, they're like finding
Shark corpses without livers. That's so weird all of these incidents show just how clever these apex predators are
These are animals with an incredibly complex and highly evolved brain
Deborah Gillies an orca researcher at the University of Washington and the nonprofit wild orca told live science live science live
Live science. They've got parts of their brain that are associated with memory and the emotion that are
Significantly more developed than ever in the human brain in quote
I didn't start the quote, but that's where the quote ends
But the scale and novelty of recent attacks have raised a question are orcas getting smarter and if so, what's driving the shift?
It's not likely that orcas brains are changing on an anatomical level said Josh McKinnis a marine ecologist who studies orcas at the University of British
Columbia behavioral changes can influence anatomical change in an animal or population
But only over thousands of years of evolution McKinnis told live science
I guess that means that they are always this diabolical and that's exactly how I would describe them
I hypothesized that we took the dumbest of them captured them and put them in our tanks for our entertainment and the smart ones
Survived that trickery only to make the species outside in the wild smarter
And if they're that smart only the dumb ones are gonna get abducted. Yeah, the dumb ones can't breathe now exactly
Um, well, I think we're on to something but orcas are fast learners
Which means they can and do teach each other some terrifying tricks and thus becoming quote smarter as a group
Still some of these seemingly new tricks may in fact be age old behaviors that humans are only
Documenting now and just like in humans some of these learned behaviors become trends ebbing and flowing in social waves waves
Frequent interactions with humans through boat traffic and fishing activities may also drive orcas to learn new behaviors
And the more their environment shifts the faster orcas must respond and rely on social learning to persist
There's no question that orcas learn from each other many of the skills these animals teach and share related to their role as highly evolved apex predators
Scientists described orcas killing and eating blue whales are the first time in a study published last year in the months and years that followed the first
Attack in March 2019 orcas preyed on a blue whale calf and juvenile in two additional incidents pushing the young blue whales below the surface to
Suffocate them this newly documented hunting behaviors is an example of social learning with strategies being shared and passed on from adult
Orcas to their young Robert Pittman a marine ecologist at Oregon State University
Marine mammal Institute told live science in an email
Anything the adults learn will be passed along from the dominant female in the pod tour offspring
He said taking down a blue whale requires cooperation and coordination Pittman said orcas
May have learned and refined the skills needed to tackle such enormous prey in response to the recovery of whale populations from whaling
This know-how was then passed on until the orcas became highly skilled at hunting even the largest animals on earth Pittman said it goes on
I like this quote killer whales are like humans and that they have their preferred cuts of meat Pittman said when preying on large whales
They almost always take the tongue first and sometimes that is what they will feed on
It does seem like a big feat to take down such a massive animal
But it should also be noted that this very large animal feeds on plankton like it doesn't have real defenses
Others than just being massive hunting. It seems impressive. I can't foresee it being that hard on an orca
You hunted big whale. Yeah, no, I mean the orcas are like
Well, they're smart for one not only are they smart. They also are assholes
It turns out we probably should have been capturing the assholes of their society to make them a nicer species
What if they're all assholes and jokes on us?
We got the dumb ass because not that we should be capturing any of them here was what I was gonna say
I wonder if anybody ever considered speaking to the orcas instead of twain twain seem to have came in peace
I wonder what the orcas would have had to say for themselves because they're they seem to be pretty advanced
Yeah, although to be fair, they're not assholes to humans
Like I've said before there's no recorded death by a killer whale in the wild in human history
Of course that might play into the orcas are smarter than we realize and that they have a way of
Changing human history to make them seem like nice guys
The article does go on for quite a long time after this and it's a mini so you know
We have time constraints on this mini and this was just a taste of just how intelligent and
Underestimated orcas actually are in a larger piece of the story to do with our heroes
Going after the billionaire yachts off of Spain
Unfortunately, they do have a taste too for shark as their populations have dwindled what with our love of shark fin soup
Hopefully we can get that figured out but in the meantime, I need to stress in the next 48 hours
Nobody should be eating shark nor after that, but the 48 hours is what I have to talk to you about
Put the shark down put it back in the water. I know you want to take a big bite out of that raw shark put it back
We'll see you in 48 hours. Bye. Bye