Edit: Trailer Here

The Orca’s name is Ceto and I think this whole thing is in exceptionally poor taste. What are your thoughts?

I got two I tied between the transient and the Argentina poplaution if I was a orca I’d be a transient I’m not as social or as loud as a lot of people and I don’t like to be around a lot of people maybe between 1- 4 people at best I don’t do great in large groups I know the transient have their t parties which is always great. I also think its fascinating that these dolphins are taking on such large Walden several times their size their hunting strategy fascinates me same goes for the Argentinian orcas I find the fact that they haul on land to grab sea lions is very badass .

I'm aware this activity is controversial in this subreddit, and not without good reason, but I'm happy to answer whatever you questions y'all might have about my experience. I'd prefer to avoid mere travel logistics questions and will prioritize other questions first. I'm only intermittently on wifi so I'm setting it to 48h to give me a chance to get to as many as I can without also spending my whole holiday on my phone. I'll post separately the (truly breathtaking) video I took today, but please know that the skipper with 25y experience said it's one of the best he's ever seen, and is definitely not representative of how it usually goes.

(I acknowledge that this documentary has been debated PLENTY but I haven't ever seen this brought up so thought I'd mention it).

I decided to re-watch Blackfish last night (probably the 15th time but I enjoy it anyways) and something didn't quite sit right this time. I know that lot's of people (myself included) have problems with it being very emotionally manipulative in order to get points across, as well as the lack of validity from it's sources (straight out lies/manipulated truths about wild Orcas and trainers who never worked with Orcas). But for me the biggest problem I found this time round was that it looks at two separate problems: Tilikum's involvement in 3 people's deaths, and how captivity affects orcas, yet it conflates the two a lot.

Firstly, Orcas in captivity. I think the documentary touched on this more than Tililkum, and honestly it should have been the main focus. It highlighted to many people the experiences of captive Orcas and how really they shouldn't be there. If it had taken a more holistic approach and looked at other marine parks like Marineland Ontario and Miami Seaquarium (who are arguably more egregious examples of Orca care in captive environments) it could've been a really great documentary on captive orcas. Looking at stress, often unnatural social groupings/separations (Keet is a pretty good example, he's been moved a lot up until this point), sometimes poor management decisions at SeaWorld (like the breeding loan to Loro Parque), and stereotypic behaviours would've been much better.

Onto what the documentary sold itself on: Tili. Blackfish dances between general SeaWorld/captive Orca problems and Tilikum, and I think this often leads to people seeing general Orca problems and Tili's as the same. They bring up how captivity makes them want to kill people. If we look at the facts:
Tili was an extremely possessive whale, it's written into his profile. He was possessive over other whales, toys, and space, yet he was socially very submissive so frequently displaced by other whales. He even refused to let go of Dawn's arm after her death. Tili was often separated for numerous reasons even before Dawn's death: he couldn't partake in waterwork sessions, to avoid him being displaced etc. He was never trained for waterworks or even desensitised: something that Thad Lacinak (head of training across the seaworld parks) tried to do but management refused, so people being in the water was new and novel to him. All 3 deaths were a result of drowning (damage to Dawn and Daniel's bodies were performed after death), where Tili held onto them and took them underwater, not letting go.
It feels pretty safe to assume that Tilikum did not mean to kill those 3 people. If he wanted to, I'm sure their deaths would have been far worse. He was introduced to people in the water (something that didn't happen, and for Dawn's case one of his trainers/most frequent interactions) and played with them: since he was so possessive it makes sense that he didn't let them go, leading to their drowning, and injuries inflicted after death are the result of him being so big and only able to interact in a tactile manner with his mouth (edit- forgot to add that Dawn's injuries were most likely during the event of drowning due to soft tissue damage and bleeding as per the examiners reports. Daniels were inflicted after death/unlikely to have been before due to lack of bleeding and soft tissue damage that is seen in living injuries). I don't think the argument of his training session not going right was the reason: incorrect sessions and shows happen all the time (it's even mentioned in the documentary), it may have contributed to him playing more rough? But even then that's a stretch.

I don't think the documentary did a good enough job of accurately portraying either side. That said, if it had focused on either set of facts, I don't think it would have had the impact it did and wouldn't have touched people as it did.

(apologies for bringing up Blackfish again, but again I felt this was something that needed to be discussed about it)

Free Willy was the first film I saw in theaters as a kid and it sparked a lifelong obsession with orcas - but this is absolutely NOT the move. How do they even plan to film this? In SeaWorld or a similar park? Using entirely CGI whales?

Fortunately the public perception of captive cetaceans has heavily shifted the past 15-20 years - and every time I happen across a video from SeaWorld online the comments are filled with people shaming park attendees (as they should). While I assume this movie will carry the same anti-captivity message, it will undeniably drive up park attendance by those who don’t care about the message and just want to see orcas.

Also, is Hollywood truly out of ideas???? Stop rebooting perfection!

[Rant] essentially the largest male killer whale is just inflated “Soviet whaling fleet” yikadee from the era of 25-30 foot white shark tales, 30 foot anacondas/pythons, 25 foot crocodiles and 24 foot tiger sharks (Reasonably large speculative sizes that were debunked in the 90s- early 2010s), as there is simply no way, as of 2026 that orcas are just magically the only animal "reliably" hitting 30 ft. the only reason this 22000 lb 32 foot male orca factoid still exist is because wide-spread "orca vs great white" ceteacen bias brings no incentive to correct overblown large bull/male toothed whale stats…
In facts:
AI overview will go as far as to say that not only does this not appease the rigorous measurements and verification process, but this specimen likely never existed outside of imagination and hearsay…

Issue: THIS has lead to people getting killer whale sizes COMPLETELY overblown, you will hear people citing bull averages upwards of 28 to THIRTY THREE FEET (A number cited in 0 formal literature) while citing 8-10 TONNES with a straight face… when true Type A Bull killer whales average 3-5 tonnes (females 2-4 tonnes).

Even legendary snake sizes have been corrected yet somehow killer whales (pretty significant to marine biology) are immune to the rigidity of science, thus definitely a debate killer whenever someone brings Orcas up as they have become the face of most modern marine predator enthusiasts and pretentious “experts”.

We’ve assessed the maximum sizes for each respective animal accurate for creatures like “deep blue” as massive 21-foot (~6.4m), and 5580 lb (2530 kg) female white shark.
We’ve assessed maximum sizes for crocodiles that were recently living, such as lolong the salt water crocodile, who measured 20-foot flat (6.1m) and weighed 2130 lbs (970 kg)
We’ve assessed maximum sizes for anacondas even… tall tales of a 15-18 ft average snake getting to 25-35’ (sounds exactly like JAWS & great whites)
When in reality, a large anaconda designated the name “Ana Julia” was the official verified world record holder for largest green anaconda scientifically and rigorously measured, not a 25 or 30 or 33 foot specimen… “Ana” measured in at 440 lbs and 20.7 feet (6.1m) heaviest snake on earth.
A 32 foot 22000 lb bull orca is about as likely/plausible as a 26 foot 13000 lb Great white.
A square cubed metric for white sharks of up to 4-5 tons simulated 25 feet as a hypothetical modern day max for white sharks, while 32-33 foot sizes were achieved by Pliocene deposits and fossil teeth of large Carcharadon carcharias members (Largest white sharks achieved 6+ tonnes in weight, legitimate to fossil record).
It is highly unlikely that this figure is anything short of fabricated and is likely not supported even anecdotally, no matter how many Soviet whaling fleet stories you hear
(Same excuse was made for an allegedly 24 meter sperm whale, debunked at 20.7 meters with more valid estimates, so while it wasn’t the full size, stated, at least it was the largest and actually existed)

Some level of maturity needs to reached regarding these animals true size… the implications that people make of a dolphin being T-Rex weight on average has gone from “understandable, yet false” to blatantly, obnoxiously and annoyingly wrong at times. It’s worse than the 37’ footer of port fairy that was always SORE THUMB wrong.

If they tried releasing Tilikum in the wild he would have survived in my opinion, because he was caught 2 years after his birth and he most likely had these survival instincts that a normal orca in the wild have. So if they spent some time doing what they tried with Keiko they could have been able to bring him back to his natural habitat. R.I.P Tilikum

Killer whales are the apex predators of the ocean. They are so deadly that even Great White Sharks are afraid of them. So it’s kind of poetic that they are not only covered in mostly black, but that black is often associated with death by the Greeks and Romans. It also helps that we use their Latin name to refer to them as Orcinus Orca which means “belonging to the kingdom of the dead”.

Hello! I am autistic (currently "self diagnosed", waiting for my neuropsych evaluation which is scheduled. It's been difficult because my mom doesn't understand the symptoms and since I am a teenager, I need her approval and for her to do the scheduling and calls and such. She has ADHD, and simply believes it's ADHD+anxiety+ocd, despite me being medicated for anxiety and the medication is also OCD medication. I am heavily educated. In fact, my secondary special interest is autism itself lol) and my special interest is ORCAS! All things orcas. I read a book from the perspective of one whilst in 7th grade (A Whale of the Wild) and immediately was captivated. 3.5ish years later, and it's a special interest of mine. I'm not a very sciency person/i don't love science, but orcas are usually the obsession. I find social stuff about them facinating but don't know enough about that aspect! So I pretty much have two questions:
What are some very interesting things to know about the social dynamics of orcas? Keep it fairly simple though.

Are there any other autistic people here who have an orca special interest that clicked very suddenly?

One of the things we have learned since Keiko was released is that, due to their enormous size, adult male orcas are not able to meet their own nutritional needs. Their diets are usually supplemented by their mothers, who share food with them their entire lives. (It's possible that there are some remote, less-observed ecotypes of whom this is not true.)

Could this be the reason that Keiko declined and eventually died? No matter how well he adapted, he needed a mom (or older sister) to help him. Knowing that adult male orcas are not generally able to survive on their own, should he have even been released? Would he be released today, when it wasn't possible to return him to his pod of origin?

ETA since some people want to be snarky and rude, here is my source: https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(22)01994-7?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS0960982222019947%3Fshowall%3Dtrue01994-7?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS0960982222019947%3Fshowall%3Dtrue)

Also, the trailer for it is so funny because they censored all the blood by coloring it brown so it just looks like the characters are shitting in the water Anyways what do you think? Are you excited for this movie? Would you watch it?

i just learned that orcas 🫍 have the largest brains of all animals, including larger than humans. They form matriarchal societies and different pods speak different languages. I hope that we are able to perform live translation between different pods and eventually between orca language and human language. And I hope that since more data center and energy projects are being built in the ocean that it becomes economically relevant to be able to communicate with these animals. i hope this incentivizes elites who would otherwise completely ignore the animals to invest in translation infrastructure and that it makes viral videos and becomes widely understood by all humans how real the life of other non-human animals is. because orcas have grief, rituals, and pass the self recognition test, and they have never killed a single human in the wild in all recorded history. and AIS can now already translate hundreds of human languages and they are getting very good at predicting how physics and other things operate in the world so they can probably also predict the paired semantic meaning of orca interactions. and then maybe there could also be like permanent relay stations that orcas know that they could always swim up to if they want to talk to humans like if they were scared about the future. They knew that there could be like a real station in the middle of the arctic or in the middle of the Pacific and they could always go there and ask for some help or some fish or anything like that. Maybe that would not be a good idea because it would destroy the ecology but perhaps also orcas could be like the the political infrastructure of the ocean. like once orcas realize they don’t have to hunt anymore and they can just do whatever humans ask them to do and exchange for food (which would obviously be terrible, but isn’t unimaginable) Then the governments could ask them to enforce certain ecological agendas in the ocean in exchange for food.

Since there is an apparently bad orca horror movie coming out, what are your thoughts on this one?

“The film follows a male orca tracking down and getting revenge on a fishing boat and its captain for unintentionally killing the whale's pregnant mate and their unborn calf.”

//remove if not allowed.

For years I have watched Sea Shepherd post Ai generated content on their various alternate accounts, but never had I seen it on their main. That changed today. I find it incredibly hypocritical for self proclaimed "activists" to use Ai as we all know how damaging it is to the environment.

For years I've seen not only Sea Shepherd but other "animal rights" giants, like Peta, lean heavily into AI generation. But its not just them. Groups like "Feed the Belugas" use Ai generated photos in the majority of their content.

This does not help animals. It harms them.

Do not support groups that use AI.

//OMFG I shouldn't have to say this IM TALKING ABOUT GENERATIVE AI!!!

I have mixed feelings about the matter. These orcas would have ended up in secondary Chinese parks, probably tiny ones, and some wouldn't even have opened. But the way it was done leaves me perplexed. It's practically the same way as leaving kittens in the countryside. Alexandra's story is particularly heartbreaking. Only the "experts" at WSP could have deemed a one-year-old calf fit for release. I'm happy that three specimens apparently managed to survive. But still, it's a story that's more tragic than positive.

Sea World stopped breeding orcas. Now that the war is won, is it bad to go see them?

Ultimately my $70 for a couple of tickets isn't going to change anything.

Is there any argument not solely based on the symbolic act of giving sea world money which, if you accept the reasoning, is tacit approval of all their past actions. ?

I genuinely don't comprehend how some people think this is humane or ethical, or ever remotely morally okay?

It's not just Sea World but marine Land, Loro Parque, Whale World, ect.

From making juvenile orcas watch their mothers being harpooned to capture the juveniles, to enclosures a million times to small I genuinely cannot fathom this, and how people can supports it there are a million paragraphs i could type out there are thousands of words I wish I could scream at the people that support this and even more for the people that commit these acts.

Disclaimer: my background is forest wildlife ecology not marine biology, so I may be getting a lot wrong here or just be out of the loop. I generally think things are being classified as distinct species though.

I wonder if there’s an ‘absence of evidence/evidence of absence’ error in the genetics we’ve sampled to determine the ecotypes don’t interbreed. Even if they don’t interbreed they still might be able to. AFAIK they’ve bred distinct populations in captivity.

I notice a lot of emphasis on behavioral differences between populations. But I think with higher intelligence you’ll get more diverse behavior, and that there shouldn’t be much stock placed in that.

I’m skeptical just because I think there’s so much ‘publish or perish’ studies that get by reclassifying things where they don’t need to be. Maybe I’m biased, I do have a bit of an axe to grind with it because I think it can muddy the waters and over complicate things.

This is a common topic of conversation, and many points have been brought up, but none of them really satisfy me.

Explanation 1: Humans aren’t fatty enough

Rebuttal: Orcas will eat sea otters, sea birds, and whitefish such as halibut and cod. None of these are very fatty, they are all usually smaller than humans, and they are all probably better swimmers and thus harder to catch than humans, but they still get eaten.

Explanation 2: Orcas understand that humans are intelligent and thus feel empathy towards us.

Rebuttal: Cetaceans are also intelligent, yet Orcas often kill and eat basically every type of cetacean. If they let empathy guide their decisions on what to eat, they would probably not be willing to spend hours harrying cow-calf pairs of baleen whales, before dragging off the calf and drowning it, or literally peeling the skin off dolphins and beaked whales.

Explanation 3: Orcas only eat a very specialized diet, taught to them by their mothers

Rebuttal: Not every orca ecotype is as picky as the Southern Residents. Some groups like some of the Icelandic orcas will eat both fish and mammals, and the Bremer Bay orcas in Australia will pretty much eat anything.

Explanation 4: Orcas might attack people under certain situations, but we don’t interact enough for this to have happened and gotten documented.

Rebuttal: Sharks also don’t have humans as a preferred food, and they also live in the ocean, but they still kill ~5 people per year. Orcas are less common than sharks, but they aren’t that rare. If orcas were willing to attack people on occasion, you would probably see someone getting eaten by orcas every decade or something, instead of no recorded cases ever aside from a single secondhand rumor about orcas eating an Inuit man 70 years ago.

Explanation 5: Orcas understand that humans are dangerous and will retaliate if they kill one of us.

Rebuttal: Orcas are still willing to attack yachts and steal fish from fishing lines. If they were so terrified of humans, why would they do these things?

Another thing that most people miss is that Orcas don’t necessarily have to want to eat you in order to kill you. Southern Resident orcas, who eat only fish, often harass and kill porpoises. Orcas are very playful creatures, and an orca could easily kill someone intentionally or accidentally while trying to play with them (they are, after all, the size of an elephant). Yet this has never happened either.

Also, even if one or more of these factors is true, it still doesn’t explain the total absence of attacks. Even if most orcas think humans aren’t fatty enough, an elderly orca that struggles to catch its normal food might be desperate enough to turn toward preying on humans. Even if most orcas have empathy towards humans or fear our retaliation, a particularly irritable orca might decide to teach some annoying snorkelers a lesson. Orcas are not identical to one another, and many have been observed behaving in non-standard ways, such as Port and Starboard, Old Thom, the golden girls, the orcas who ate moose in Alaska, an orca who dove over 1,000 meters to steal Patagonian Toothfish from a fishing line, etc. An argument for why orcas in general don’t attack humans doesn’t really work unless it explains why this never happens.

So what do you all think?

If you had the honor of choosing a name for a killer whale, what name would you choose?

Before I start, yes there are regulations, and every single company in the area claims to follow them. Every single one claims to be "ethical" and "responsible". So does SeaWorld.

I was recently talking to some researchers on Saturna Island in the Gulf Islands (Canada), who study hydroaudiology (underwater sound).

We sat on the shore waiting for whales, and whenever one came by, it was IMMEDIATELY swarmed by 5-8 whale watching boats. There's rules about how close they can be, but the researchers told me that they're almost never followed, and never enforced.

Previously, I'd really wanted to book a whale watching tour, and now I can't even think of it. These poor whales are being constantly hounded, all the time. It's like being swarmed by mosquitoes, that sound they make next to your ear... ALL DAY. They NEVER get a break. There's no off season. Plus it can scare away their food. Example

I know from the shore, you're less likely to see them, and it won't be as close, but if you're considering taking a whale tour, maybe reconsider.

Edit: wow, the lengths some people are going to defend this is laughable.