Orcas sharing prey with humans may be their way of learning about us

Orcas have long held significance with people on Vancouver Island. Many Indigenous communities here and along the coast share similarities in their creation stories and belief systems, which often centre on killer whales.

In Lekwungen tradition, their creation story tells of a pod of orcas that swam vigorously until they created a whirlpool. The whales emerged from the whirlpool as wolves, able to roam on land. The pack of wolves eventually transformed into the Lekwungen people.

Further up-Island, the Ma’amtagila people tell the story of their first treaty. A young boy who was able to communicate with orcas struck an agreement between his village and the pods: the whales and people would never hunt one another.

“Still today the Kwakwaka’wakw people honour this treaty, and we live in harmony with whales ever since,” ‘Maxwayalis Charlie Matilpi, a Ma’amtagila elder, said. “There are many stories telling of the killer whales saving our people when drowning and showing the people where to find food in times of famine.”

In Haida and Tlingit tradition, the first orca was created by a man named Natsilane, who carved a fierce “blackfish” that came to life to seek revenge on his enemies. Once they were defeated, Natsilane told the orca to never harm a human again.

To this day, there is no record of an orca fatally attacking a human in the wild. The only known orca bite happened in 1972 when a surfer in California had an orca chomp down on his leg, but he told the press that the whale quickly let go and swam away, leading the surfer to believe he was briefly mistaken for a seal. Otherwise, we’ve largely been left off the menu of the fiercest apex predator in the ocean.

Still, there have been multiple recorded instances of these whales offering a helping hand—and a “tasty” meal—to people, prompting scientists to try to understand how orcas view their relationship with people.

Two decades of food sharing with humans

A study published last week in the Journal of Comparative Psychology posits that the whales share prey with humans as a way of understanding us.

The study focused on 34 interactions over the last 20 years where an orca offered prey or other items to people on boats, in the water, and on shore in four different oceans. Orcas of all sexes and ages were witnessed displaying this behaviour.

A total of 18 species were given to people by the whales, including six fish, five mammals, three invertebrates, two birds, one reptile, and one piece of seaweed. Cases were only included if the whales approached humans, not the other way around.

“In almost every case, the whales awaited a human response [after sharing the prey] before subsequently reacting,” the study states.

Unique acts of kindness in the wild

These acts of altruism by wild animals are extremely rare, according to the study. Some of the “only examples” of wild animals sharing food with people involved abandoned children being provided food by wolves or primates (turns out The Jungle Book wasn’t a stretch).

But killer whales are known for their complex societal structures and cultures, which have “no parallel outside of humans,” according to the study.

The study’s authors were inspired to research this sharing behaviour further after multiple interactions with orcas near Vancouver Island offering food.

Of the 34 interactions, including the researchers’ own experiences, the whales would wait for a response. When the humans didn’t take and eat the food (88% of the time, no one wanted to take the freshly caught items), the whales would retrieve it, and 38% of the time, they would then swim away. But on seven occasions, the whales continued to offer the food at least two or three times.

These interactions mostly involved a single whale (62% of the time), but occasionally pairs or groups would work together to try to share prey with people.

“The accounts of killer whales offering prey and other items to humans presented here suggest that these are not isolated events but rather represent a unique form of behaviour that has been selected for in this species,” the study reads.

The researchers say it's likely these events have occurred more frequently than the study suggests, as they only referred to the clearest examples of the behaviour.

Big brains and complex social structures

The authors postulate that this behaviour occurs because humans and orcas don’t traditionally compete in the same biomes. Orcas also live in social communities, where sharing and reciprocity keep relationships stable (orcas rarely leave their kin groups).

They also have larger brains than their bodies would suggest—second in scale only to modern humans, the study says—giving them the ability of “advanced communication, cognitive, social, and emotional intelligence.”

“If such mechanisms were motivating the events reported here, the whales offering prey and other items would have to be interested in understanding the actions of the people receiving them,” the study reads.

It’s possible that the food offerings were meant to instigate play with people, but the researchers say they don’t believe it was a driving factor in all cases. Instead, it’s more likely that these events were a form of exploration for the whales.

The authors caution people to be careful if they’re ever offered prey by orcas, as it can “not be ruled out that these cases were Machiavellian in nature,” given the high intelligence of the species and ability to manipulate their surroundings for their gain.

The study points to one captive whale that was recorded displaying intentionally manipulative behaviour during a visual acuity test—for weeks, the whale gave the correct answers during the test until one day it provided incorrect answers 83 times in a row, “apparently on purpose.”

But there are more stories of cooperation between orcas and people: there are cases of wild killer whales cooperatively hunting with humans in Australia “over several decades and potentially in Russia for generations,” according to the study.

Hunting styles determine sharing behaviours

Don’t hold your breath waiting for our resident orcas in the Salish Sea to offer a meal—the orcas most likely to share food are ones with a diverse diet. Fish-only hunters (like Southern Resident killer whales) have not been seen taking part in these behaviours, despite “high familiarity” with humans.

The orcas most likely to offer prey to humans typically hunt near the surface, especially targeting air-breathing mammals, like seals.

But orcas have been witnessed sharing prey around the world. Divers have captured videos in New Zealand and Antarctica of orcas passing meat to them, with each situation appearing to be a tender moment of kindness.

Researchers say this behaviour will need to be studied further—and while we study these whales, they may be studying us.

“Offering items to humans could simultaneously include opportunities for killer whales to practise learned cultural behaviour, explore, or play, and in so doing learn about, manipulate, or develop relationships with us.”

Much like humans, “sharing is a cultural byproduct” of exploring relationships within their environment.