Many years ago I watched old documentary footage showing a blue whale being slowly bitten to death by a pod of killer whales.  It had a lasting impact on me as ever since then I’ve always regarded them as extremely dangerous (perhaps the 70′s Jaws ripoff ‘Orca’ influenced me a tad also).

I couldn’t find the footage on youtube but did find a clip where a pod of 15 killer whales spent over 6 hours trying to kill a grey whale calf and leaving the carcass after only eating its lower jaw and tongue.

Killer whales.  Beautiful, definitely, but killers nevertheless.  People try to make them cute and cuddly by parading them at sea-parks, demand that they be be called Orca and not the dreaded ‘K’ word,  and making cheesy kid movies about them, but as we heard last week, Killer whales actually kill (funny that).

Here’s where I am confused.

- Toto the Terrier bites a kid (fictitious but true)… The dog is destroyed.

- Abu the rare White Tiger mauls keeper to death (Zion Wildlife Gardens, NZ)… The tiger is destroyed.

- Tilikum the Killer Whale bites, mauls and drowns trainer (is also responsible for 2 deaths previously making it 3 altogether)… The whale is not destroyed.

In fact, Tilikum is allowed to live as the alpha male of Sea World’s breeding program. How’s that for mixed signals? Poor guy probably thinks that killing humans equals business time with the lady Orcas.

Unlike wild killer whales, captives have attacked and even killed people such as their handlers or pool intruders, with nearly two dozen attacks since the 1970s. Tilikum, an orca, has been involved in three fatalities. (wikipedia)