Still, it would not be out of place for orcas to kill moose. But so far, there are no concrete pieces of evidence to back the story. There are narratives of killer whales (orcas) killing moose. However, whales may actually go after moose. So, moose are at a total disadvantage if they attack whales under such conditions. Added to that, whales are more accustomed to water than moose. So, the chances of a moose landing a hit on a whale are really low.Īll in all, most whale species are multiple times larger than moose. But then, whales are much faster than moose in the water. And even if they do attack whales, their hits may only be effective on smaller whales like dwarf sperm whales. When moose come across whales, they are unlikely to attack them. During these times, they may come across whales. But in summer, moose sometimes wander into the waters in search of aquatic vegetation. This means that they are unlikely to encounter whales. “It seems something has changed in this ecosystem,” Sarmarra says.Moose are land animals, so ordinarily, they spend most of their time on land. But Samarra cautioned it’s difficult to know what’s really going on without a closer analysis. So far they’ve conducted their experiment on four killer whales, and while the pilot whale calls didn’t immediately scare them off, a few of the killer whales did swim away. Selbmann and Samarra spent this past summer broadcasting pilot whale recordings at killer whales equipped with tracking tags. “Are the killer whales avoiding the pilot whale sounds?” “Now we want to test the reverse,” says Selbmann. Previous research conducted in Norway showed that when scientists played the sound of killer whales to pilot whales, the pilot whales swam straight toward the sounds and swarmed the researchers’ boat. To gain insight into what could be driving the interactions, Selbmann and Samarra are performing acoustic playback experiments. Already, scientists have noticed other odd cases-such as how humpback whales seem to defend other whales against killer whale attacks. Researchers are beginning to pay more attention to the unusual interactions between different cetacean species, Ferguson says, noting which are capable of defending themselves against attack, and which become aggressive toward predators. However, there have been a few accounts of smaller prey species attacking the killer whales back. Steve Ferguson, a marine mammal ecologist at the University of Manitoba who is not involved with the research, says that the sightings are unusual because in so many other places killer whales are a top predator, and other smaller cetaceans tend to avoid them. Perhaps the pilot whales are viewing them as a threat, and responding accordingly. In other parts of the world, killer whales do feed on smaller whales such as minkes, belugas, and narwhals, and are even known to chase down larger baleen whales. “They’re not really a threat to pilot whales,” she says.īut Selbmann says it’s possible that the pilot whales didn’t know the killer whales weren’t a threat. For example, meerkats will throw sand at snakes.” But even this explanation isn’t ideal, Selbmann says, considering the killer whales aren’t known to eat the smaller pilot whales. “A lot of animals mob their predators to rob them of the element of surprise. “The other theory is that it’s anti-predator mobbing behavior,” explains Selbmann. Since the 2015 encounter, she’s seen similar interactions around 20 times.Īnna Selbmann (front left), Filipa Samarra (back left), and colleagues scan for whales off Iceland. ![]() Interactions between killer and pilot whales have only been scientifically documented a few times, and Samarra is among the first scientists to have observed this behavior in Iceland. “It’s very unusual that they’re afraid of anything-or seemingly afraid.” “It’s quite unusual because the killer whale is this top predator,” says Anna Selbmann, a doctoral candidate at the University of Iceland who is supervised by Samarra. ![]() As the whistling grew stronger a group of pilot whales came into view, and the killer whales seemed to turn and swim away. “Then the killer whales just went silent,” says Samarra, a biologist and lead investigator of the Icelandic Orca Project. She listened as they pipped, squealed, and clicked when suddenly her ears were filled with high-pitched whistling. In 2015, out on the choppy waters off southern Iceland, Samarra and her research team were eavesdropping on a group of killer whales. Share this articleįilipa Samarra could hear the pilot whales before she could see them.
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