Maybe you mean in the wild? A high-profile death-by-Orca occurred at Seaworld [1] but I think this was more of an intentional revenge rather than accidental playfulness.
> but I think this was more of an intentional revenge rather than accidental playfulness.
At first blush this struck me as a silly comment, so I read the article... and boy, are you right. It really does sound like an intentional, even methodical killing. Here's the description from the wiki:
> As part of the end-of-show routine, [Dawn Brancheau] was at the edge of the pool, rubbing Tilikum's head. She was lying with her face next to Tilikum's on a slide-out, which is a platform submerged about a foot into the water. SeaWorld claims that she was pulled into the water by her ponytail. Some witnesses reported seeing Tilikum grab Brancheau by the arm or shoulder. The orca's move seems to have been very quick, pulling her underwater and drowning her. At least a dozen patrons witnessed Brancheau in the water with Tilikum. Employees used nets and threw food at Tilikum in an attempt to distract him. Moving from pool to pool in the complex, they eventually directed Tilikum to a smaller, medical pool, where it would be easier to calm him. After approximately 45 minutes, Tilikum released Brancheau's body.
I suppose I'm anthropomorphizing and making a lot of assumptions, but holding that poor woman under water for 45 minutes strikes me as making sure that she's dead--particularly since its caretakers (who, presumably, have a strong understanding of how to influence its behavior) were actively attempting to entice it to let her go. For 45 minutes.
Honestly, it's a bit surprising that people find this surprising. Orcas are air-breathing mammals, and conscious breathers at that. They kill other mammals, namely whales, often by drowning them intentionally. They know what drowning is.
The other is that these are massive animals placed in water prisons, constantly exposed to the sun and concrete and fed fish they wouldn't eat in the wild. It would be like putting a human in a small 3'x3' box with the top exposed to the sun and fed dog food and then being surprised that they're on edge.
That orca definitely killed the trainer on purpose or did it in a way such that it didn't care whether she lived or died and was releasing frustration. An orca could bite a human in half in the same way that a human can bite through jello, which shows that the orca was displaying frustration and exasperation. Orcas have committed suicide while in captivity, by intentionally and repeatedly ramming their heads into the concrete walls to cause brain hemorrhages or starving themselves.
To be frank, it is mindblowing to me that people view these incidences as examples of orca intelligence rather than exhibitions of human cruelty and unintelligence.
> It would be like putting a human in a small 3'x3' box
I get that you're trying to make a point, but this kind of hyperbole only discredits it.
> Orcas have committed suicide while in captivity, by intentionally and repeatedly ramming their heads into the concrete walls to cause brain hemorrhages
I think you mean AN orca did this (Hugo), and it was after being kept in solitary isolation for 12 years, something that SeaWorld thankfully doesn't do.
Wild orcas travel on average 40 miles a day, can travel 100 miles in a single day, and make round trips in the thousands of miles. They dive several hundred feet every day. It isn't hyperbole unless you're going to bikeshed over the exact footage. The chemicals in the pool and drugs they are given are also another thing.
> I think you mean AN orca did this
Hugo was with a tank mate Lolita at the time but had been in isolation prior to that.
There are cases of captive orcas arguably attempting suicide, either by intentional ramming, stranding, or starvation. It is indeed hard to find good data on this (I wonder why...), and so it is hard to state absolutes.
This ignores the much more common and documented violent outbursts towards both trainers and fellow tankmates/cellmates induced by the stress they experience in captivity.
Showed my math in another comment, but your claim is off by a factor of about 370, so that’s how it’s hyperbole. That is not bikeshedding, that’s just very very wrong.
Mixing up Miami Seaquarium in a discussion about SeaWorld is confused. The two environments are totally incomparable.
If you believe Blackfish, dolphins (which orcas are a type of) can just stop breathing if they want to commit suicide, so the ramming of the heads is moot. Humans occasionally ram their heads without intent to kill, so why would orcas be different?
It is bikeshedding. My comment about the box was in general a sentiment and an illustrative and qualitative example, not something that can be directly compared enough to calculate some exact number and certainly not something where some ideal number affects the sentiment.
For example, the average American walks 1.5-2 miles a day, so that's a factor of over x20 for the average travel distance of orcas (which by the way is average linear distance, i.e., starting point to ending point, and not total travel which is much higher). Humans don't dive and live very horizontal lives, while orcas dive 100-500 feet multiple times every day. Their tanks at SeaWorld are only approximately 30 feet deep, lesser at other places.
So your "factor of about 370" doesn't make any sense, because it myopically only takes into account relative size and a false comparison of human height versus orca length.
And by the way, I said a box with the lid off, so your mention of a 3'x3'x3' is incorrect. It's hard to believe how my off-the-cuff suggestion of 3'x3' versus your "calculated" 13'x13' discredits my point in any way. And I left something off, because the orcas experience strong chemicals in the water, so the human box would need a gas of some sort constantly irritating the skin and eyes.
So yes, it is bikeshedding, because here we are.
> Mixing up Miami Seaquarium in a discussion about SeaWorld is confused. The two environments are totally incomparable.
I'm not confused about anything or mixing anything up. I genuinely have no idea what you're referring to or even getting at. Also, you do know that SeaWorld loans and sells orcas to places that often have far worse conditions than SeaWorld's already deplorable conditions, right?
I don't know what you're getting at in your last comment at all. Orcas weigh several tons. And an orca intentionally stranding isn't trying to commit suicide by suffocation. I didn't even say so. Orcas die from stranding due to their immense weight affecting their internal organs.
I have no idea how one can do any research into the lives orcas live in captivity and feel anything remotely close to okay with it.
Well, simple ratios. A human is roughly 6 feet tall, so a 3x3x3 box is a box with side length 1/2 of the height. The equivalent for an orca would be if you took an orca’s length, 26 feet, and had the enclosure be 13x13x13. The volume would be 2197 cubic feet, roughly 16,000 gallons that is.
Seaworld Orlando’s enclosure is approx 6 million gallons, so that statement is off by about 37,500%.
I'll agree it is confrontational, but I addressed it to people in general, so it's meant to be confrontational to the collective. And it's justifiably so because these beings continue to be held in captivity, bred in captivity, and even captured from the wild to be held in captivity. It's pure torture that people charge for visitors to come and laugh and gawk at.
A different wikipedia page (about another of the people Tilikum killed) describes the incident differently. I have not investigated all the citations to explain the difference:
Tilikum became an infamous whale after attacking and killing his trainer, forty-year-old SeaWorld staff member Dawn Brancheau. Tilikum grabbed her arm, scalped the woman, fractured her jaw and killed her by blunt force trauma, the result of which was a contentious and controversial legal case over the safety of working with orca whales and the ethics of keeping live whales and other marine mammals in captivity.
>The autopsy report said that Brancheau died from drowning and blunt force trauma. Her spinal cord was severed, and she had sustained fractures to her jawbone, ribs, and a cervical vertebra. Her scalp was completely torn off from her head, and her left elbow and left knee had been dislocated.
Tilikum weighed over 12,000 pounds. Orcas have bite forces apparently estimated to be around to be at least 20,000 psi (13 times that of a jaguar), can launch themselves tens of feet out of the water, can ram great whites and whales to disorient or knock them out, and more. It's honestly surprising the injuries weren't worse and showcases the orca was frustrated.
No one can ever just tell the facts about this case without some kind of slant. There's nothing we know that indicates this was an act of revenge. Tilikum was much more mistreated by the orcas he lived with than he was by any human, so if there was to be an act of revenge it would've likely been on another orca.
Or that because of their natural social structure, he wasn't as bothered by it as being trotted out to dance every five minutes while living in a glass jar
In HN tradition you've missed what I was trying to say, attention from other orca may be more welcome then idiots with legs, regardless of if it's negative.
You also make the dumb assumption that all creatures are here to perform a task, that isn't how real life species work
Not quite, I took your logic and simply showed that it leads to the wrong result.
I never said anyone is here to perform a task. That said, I am happier pressing buttons on a machine than I am just lying motionless. It doesn’t matter that the activity is artificial, doing something is by far preferable to doing nothing.
At first blush this struck me as a silly comment, so I read the article... and boy, are you right. It really does sound like an intentional, even methodical killing. Here's the description from the wiki:
> As part of the end-of-show routine, [Dawn Brancheau] was at the edge of the pool, rubbing Tilikum's head. She was lying with her face next to Tilikum's on a slide-out, which is a platform submerged about a foot into the water. SeaWorld claims that she was pulled into the water by her ponytail. Some witnesses reported seeing Tilikum grab Brancheau by the arm or shoulder. The orca's move seems to have been very quick, pulling her underwater and drowning her. At least a dozen patrons witnessed Brancheau in the water with Tilikum. Employees used nets and threw food at Tilikum in an attempt to distract him. Moving from pool to pool in the complex, they eventually directed Tilikum to a smaller, medical pool, where it would be easier to calm him. After approximately 45 minutes, Tilikum released Brancheau's body.
I suppose I'm anthropomorphizing and making a lot of assumptions, but holding that poor woman under water for 45 minutes strikes me as making sure that she's dead--particularly since its caretakers (who, presumably, have a strong understanding of how to influence its behavior) were actively attempting to entice it to let her go. For 45 minutes.
Really wild stuff.