An Iberian Play Date

Orcas are dolphins, just more formidable. Their brains match & likely exceed chimpanzees due to specialization. Like humans, they've adapted to all of the climates of the planet.

Orcas are magnificent. They are the apex predator of the sea. They are adaptable to nearly any condition. The principal threat is the loss of habitat and food sources. While there are perhaps 50,000 of them left worldwide, in areas around Vancouver and Seattle, they are thinning rapidly as their food sources have been decimated by humans. Many of the sub-species around the world are now severely inbred. We are their only threat. Like crabs which have survived nearly every mass extinction, the only threat is us. Large fish will be down to 10% of their historic norms within 15 more years. Historically when we tap out a species in the ocean, we look for another. Free protein threatens all sea life.

The Best of Last Week

The first week of July brought many opportunities to celebrate. Our youngest son was married to the most wonderful of young ladies he met at University. They are a nice couple and if the fate of the world stands in the balance I am sure they collectively make the world a little bit better place. The world always needs good people and I trust they are a wonderful contribution to the horde.

Some New Friends

I recently reached out to a group of fellow Substackers. I am early in the getting-to-know phase but I am already sure of a few things. One of the key moments in moving forward is to accept there are things you DO NOT KNOW and embrace the idea of WANTING to figure out the next steps. I am MOST EXCITED as we are quite different. A broad cross-section of opinions and experience seems the fertile ground necessary to hear, consider, adopt, and apply something new.

Get to the Point

I shared with them some of my instinctive concerns about my writing. One is to get to the point and maybe not let the story meander. Today my story is about killer whales. I heard a couple of radio reports recently and they drove me to explore and learn more. I hope you enjoy it. It all comes together off the coast of Spain, an Iberian play date.

Kid Memories

On Sunday nights as a child, after Mom had assessed whether we made a feeble attempt at homework, it was often Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom and The Wonderful World of Disney. Wild Kingdom was an old dude named Marlin Perkins. He was always dressed up as if he fell out of the J. Peterman catalog. Marlin was always safe in the truck and his sidekick Jim would tranquilizer dart the charging cat or wrestle the beasts to the ground. It always seemed it was largely to put what looked like a keyfob in their ear for tracking. It was the 1960s so I imagine these tracking devices were of limited use and hardly as useful as an AirTag. I loved the show and never grew tired of seeing animals I would never likely encounter in the suburbs of Buffalo NY.

Play Orca Play

Our recent obsession with ChatGPT has seemed to hurtle many of us headlong to the realization that maybe speech is the root of consciousness. These large language models seem to imply that speech might largely be applying a few ground rules and then just picking the next word based on your last word or two. In an earlier post, I explored the roots of language. One of my memorable observations from the research is that 90% of all of our speech is silent and is just dialog inside our heads with ourselves. I also shared the related role of sign language and signaling as directly related to speech development. I discuss these topics in the old post below — it’s my favorite subtitle ever!

It Starts In Your Head

Even if you did not study marine biology a lot of us know how smart killer whales (orcas) seem to be. They are pack animals and formidable hunters. They are also carefully studied for their practice of discovery and sharing new knowledge with the pod. Before I embarked on this post, I was already aware of one well-known pattern that has been observed. While this is not in every pod, there is a growing transfer of knowledge related to many shark species including the Great White Shark. All of us who have watched Jaws are partial to the sharks at the top of the food chain. The reality is quite different. A killer whale has 3-4 times the bite force of a shark, they hunt in packs, and, as one of my favorite substack writers

Jillian Hess

who writes Noted might surmise, they take notes! Once a pod member learns something, they pass it on and practice new techniques with the rest of the pod. This is so cool! This is the ULTIMATE OUTDOOR ONE ROOM SCHOOLHOUSE! Now, to the survival of the fittest part of nature. The orcas have figured out to bump the shark, startle them and flip them over. It turns out Great Whites, when flipped upside down enter into a tonic immobility state. Almost immediately the orca concentrates his bite and severs the pectoral fins. What lies in between is the primary goal. The battle is over surprisingly quickly. The orcas are picky eaters and the only part of the shark of any interest to them is the liver which lies between the pectoral fins. It sounds a bit like Hannibal Lecter. Now that scientists know what to look for, what is surprising is when the orcas enter an area, the sharks hurry up and leave. The sharks they vanquish wash up on shore mostly intact, sans pectoral fins and liver.

Play Orca Play

The orcas as intelligent creatures also love to play. At least two pods that like the area off the western coast of Spain and Portugal have focused on a new game. The story here is no longer a random event as it now happening with some frequency. There are competing theories about what exactly is going on. I am going to focus on the most entertaining. One term often applied to innovation in the economic realm is Creative Destruction. New ways of doing things beget new opportunities. In the last thirty years, we have seen the rise of unbelievably high-wealth individuals. Regardless of how high the numbers go, some figure it’ll all trickle down so do not worry. A business to create the most amazing of personal yachts has become one way to keep score in our modern world.

In a tribute to the effectiveness of trickle-down a new type of job has emerged. I haven’t noted the openings on LinkedIn or Indeed just yet. You see, the uber-rich like to have their yachts in all the cool places at different times of the year. Events like the Grand Prix of Monaco come to mind. The challenge, of course, is the uber-rich cannot be troubled with traveling from one spot to another — such a task is outsourced. Yacht transporters are now a thing. I heard an interview related to just such an incident in the Atlantic off the coast of Spain. A transporter and her small support team were readying to steer a yacht through the Straight of Gibraltar. Onto the scene emerges a pod of five orcas. They have come to play. Based upon numerous eyewitness accounts, what happens next seems to be:

• The orcas see a ship or yacht and want to check out the helipad :)

• They feel out the ship and give it a few friendly bumps. At this point, the transporter is happy they got paid in advance.

• The transporter and team decide maybe they can get them to move on by making some noises, banging some pans, etcetera. This doesn’t work. The orcas came to play a game and they haven’t started yet.

• The whales, perhaps using their frontal lobes ignore the prompting. It seems the whales LOVE to trail the rudder and enjoy the flow of the water and how it feels on their body. If there is not the satisfaction they need, they just decide the stupid rudder is kinda like a shark pectoral fin. 16000 pounds of bite force is more than adequate to disable Jeff Bezos’ rudder it seems.

• Once they disable the rudder, the next logical step according to pod rules is to tear it off like a shark's pectoral fin. This often leads to the yacht taking on water. Wow, these mega yachts are not as seaworthy as they look! It is now time to call the Coast Guard for a rescue.

• I wonder what would happen if there were dual rudders and the owners of the ship had a bunch of liver in storage in the area between the rudders?

• In recent years, several yachts have been sunk but usually, they just need to be towed and repaired.

Killer Whales are endangered. There are perhaps 50,000 of all wild killer whales on the planet depending upon your level of optimism. Orcas are the largest of the dolphin family of creatures. Their story is amazing. Their closest original relatives on land are the hippopotamus. They evolved from deer-like land creatures that would wade in lagoons. The deer-like creatures were about the size of house cats. That was about 50 million years ago. Over the next ten million years, they lost their hind legs, grew flippers and fins, and became the streamlined giants we know today. I have always been impressed with our story of shedding our hair, learning to walk upright, and becoming an endurance animal — IMPRESSIVE. The Orca’s tale is impressive also. The lifespan, depending upon habitat ranges from 30-90 years. The larger pods can include up to four generations living together — the ultimate multi-generational household. They have no predators except us. They were hunted aggressively into the 1960s because they disrupted commercial fishing interests. They are specialists. Many of the pods might become experts at hunting salmon or seals. Since they pass down knowledge and keep it in the pod, they have a great plan for survival if it were not for us. Orcas have adapted (like humans) to every possible spot and can thrive in the coldest and warmest of conditions. An Orca has never killed a human in the wild. Capturing them and using them as props in shows like at SeaWorld has resulted in several incidents where the whales killed a handler.

For fans of Creative Destruction, we should thank the Orcas. You see, just like pretending there will be no storms on the Gulf Coast and counting the plywood and generators sold as economic growth each hurricane season, the Orcas are trickling down some wonderful work for the yacht builders. It’s the little things that can keep us at 3% growth and all will be well.

Interested?

There are other theories about what is going on with the Orcas. The study continues but some believe one Mother Orca, White Gladis was traumatized in a boat encounter and is now teaching other Orcas. There are three confirmed sinkings near Gibraltar. There are only 39 confirmed living Orcas that live in the region near Gibraltar. In the hierarchy, Orcas are matriarchal and the leadership of a pod is driven by the female. The male offspring of the Orcas remain with their mothers for life! The females do sometimes spin-off to form new pods after having calves.

The Poll & Music

The story of how Orcas came to be is AMAZING TO ME. I’m glad Marlin Perkins never expected Jim to secure a killer whale now that I know the bite force is 16,000 pounds. This post was a BLAST and I came across some fun facts like a grizzly bear can generate 1160 pounds of bite force. That’s enough to crush a bowling ball but he better stay out of the water. If you were wondering what makes these creatures mammals (1) they nurse their young and (2) they have a neocortex for complex thought.

There doesn’t seem to be any good music about killer whales. Maybe I missed the boat this time. The great thing about music is when you aren’t quite sure, you can just Sing a Song.