the serial killer whale

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Originally Posted by WingedWolfPsion

Orcas are undoubtedly on the short list of sentient species on the planet, and it certainly isn't any surprise to ME that they can calculate violence, plan for the future, and seek revenge. It's been documented often enough now.

Orcas don't eat humans. They break their backs, or simply drown them. It's not predatory behavior, it's homicide. I don't blame them, of course, certainly humans, chimps, gorillas, and other sentient beings may do the same.

I recollect a pair of orcas that had a calf--the calf fell ill, and was removed for treatment, but it died. The orcas vocalized in ways that had not been recorded previously, until one day, they cooperated to break their trainer's back. The trainer lived, but of course did not return.

The odd vocalizations stopped, and the orcas returned to their normal behavior. The incident was labeled an accident, but really? One orca carried the trainer on his back, and the other breached over him, smashing the trainer into the water, but barely brushing the other orca's back. That's a precision move, and it was a very coordinated one, too.

Who can blame them? Their calf was taken away by humans, and they never saw it again. Very nice work, though, to not only exact revenge, but to make it look like an accident. If people are going to work with a creature that weighs over 10,000 pounds and has the mental capacity of, at minimum, a 5 year old human, one has to expect such things.

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All species of dolphins are currently trying to be proved as sentient to stop the culling of the animals in the Japanese waters. (Which, with sentience, would be considered murder.)
I wholeheartedly agree.

I also think, that because these animals have a sentience that we don't completely understand, keeping them in such a contained area is very difficult on them neurologically.
It's interesting though. Ravens are recorded to be the most 'intelligent' species of animal on the planet besides humans, but they lack the emotional, social, and coordination skills that dolphin species have as well as communication skills. Which makes dolphins sentient while ravens are just intelligent.

People take these species for granted, they really do. I hope that one day things will be better for the captive dolphin species.

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Originally Posted by WingedWolfPsion

Orcas are undoubtedly on the short list of sentient species on the planet, and it certainly isn't any surprise to ME that they can calculate violence, plan for the future, and seek revenge. It's been documented often enough now.

Orcas don't eat humans. They break their backs, or simply drown them. It's not predatory behavior, it's homicide. I don't blame them, of course, certainly humans, chimps, gorillas, and other sentient beings may do the same.

I recollect a pair of orcas that had a calf--the calf fell ill, and was removed for treatment, but it died. The orcas vocalized in ways that had not been recorded previously, until one day, they cooperated to break their trainer's back. The trainer lived, but of course did not return.

The odd vocalizations stopped, and the orcas returned to their normal behavior. The incident was labeled an accident, but really? One orca carried the trainer on his back, and the other breached over him, smashing the trainer into the water, but barely brushing the other orca's back. That's a precision move, and it was a very coordinated one, too.

Who can blame them? Their calf was taken away by humans, and they never saw it again. Very nice work, though, to not only exact revenge, but to make it look like an accident. If people are going to work with a creature that weighs over 10,000 pounds and has the mental capacity of, at minimum, a 5 year old human, one has to expect such things.

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This right here is what I was going to say. Orcas are on the very small list of animals which are self aware. They recognize their selves in a mirror, have problem solving intelligence and just operate on a higher level than other animals. Dolphins, chimps, gorillas, elephants, crows and horses have all been proven to be sentient animals on different levels. Most of these have the ability to feel almost every emotion that we do. They learn from experiences. They stress. They plan. They remember and can hold a grudge. Dolphins, elephants and the apes show affection for family members and have been shown to grieve the death of a family member.

Dolphins are also one of the few animals that have been proven to have sex just for fun (not just procreation) and they have been seen killing other dolphins in the ocean.

Imagine how bored they must become when they are in a small tank. I would think that anything that operates on much more than just wild instinct would go nuts over time being contained like that. I love my pets but there are some animals I just wouldnt want to keep in captivity. The sentient ones. Its no different from one of us being in prison. They just dont cope like other animals can.

I do hope the HSUS and other animals rights people dont try to attack the park for this but it should not have happened. The trainers can read those animals. I have seen shows and interviews where they say how they are able to easily read when one of the marine animals is acting differently. Stress, frustration etc.. Maybe they can even pick up on weather changes or other nature related things like some other animals can. Who knows. The one real fact is that Orca should not have been bothered when it was acting differently.

I don't think horses pass the mirror test. The last I heard, the list included the following animals:

Bottlenose Dolphins
Orcas
Chimps
Bonobos
Orangutans
Gorillas
elephants
European magpies
Humans

These are the only species which have passed the test so far. Many other species have not yet been tested. Human children fail the mirror test until they are about 18 months old.

For those who aren't familiar with it, this test is the current standard for evaluating self-awareness. The animal must recognize that the animal in the mirror is actually ITSELF, and not another animal, or just an image, etc. They are given sufficient time to come to this conclusion (after all, a person who has never seen a mirror before might take a while to figure it out, too).

Once they get used to the mirror, their awareness is tested by placing a mark somewhere on their body where they can only see it by looking in the mirror. If the animal acknowledges and touches the mark after seeing it in the mirror, then we know that they understand the image in the mirror is them.

These species are considered sentient--they have a level of consciousness above that of other species--the same level we are on. That doesn't mean they're as smart as we are--just that they're as AWARE as we are. Their inner mental life can be as complex as ours. They aren't up to building space shuttles, but they are capable of making plans for the future and then carrying them out--they can imagine. This is why sentient species are capable of producing art that actually looks like more than a mess.

Now, cetaceans have one of the largest auditory processing centers of any animal. Their brains are huge. We know they're sentient--what we aren't clear on is exactly how smart they are. This is because we haven't figured out how to speak their language. We have managed to pick up a few phrases, but we don't 'get' the whole thing. And it IS language--pods from different areas speak different dialects. The possibilities for why we haven't decoded this yet include some that are rather daunting.

Cetaceans see sounds. Their auditory and visual centers are tied in together. What they see with their eyes is handled the same way in their brain as what they see with their sonar. Can you imagine a language that incorporates this?
Cetacean language may be more complex than human language, even if they are not as as conventionally intelligent as we are.

All of which comes down to just one point--Tilicum meant to kill his trainer. He may have done it out of anger, frustration, etc--but he knew what he was doing, and he most likely even knew that it was wrong. The other orcas were upset by whatever he was saying beforehand--their agitation with his behavior was mentioned.
We would try a human who did this for murder. Tilicum is being treated like a large, dangerous animal. I'm not sure that lack of punishment is an appropriate response for an animal with this kind of intellect, but perhaps that's just me. Yes, he's in a captive situation not of his own choosing, and he deserves some leeway for that, but other orcas don't turn homocidal over it.
At the very least, someone needs to tell him that he was bad. He's more than capable of understanding it.

My wife and I honeymooned in Florida not but a few months ago....

We have pictures from the show of the woman that got killed....

SO weird to think about.

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Originally Posted by Foschi Exotic Serpents

This right here is what I was going to say. Orcas are on the very small list of animals which are self aware. They recognize their selves in a mirror, have problem solving intelligence and just operate on a higher level than other animals. Dolphins, chimps, gorillas, elephants, crows and horses have all been proven to be sentient animals on different levels. Most of these have the ability to feel almost every emotion that we do. They learn from experiences. They stress. They plan. They remember and can hold a grudge. Dolphins, elephants and the apes show affection for family members and have been shown to grieve the death of a family member.

Dolphins are also one of the few animals that have been proven to have sex just for fun (not just procreation) and they have been seen killing other dolphins in the ocean.

Imagine how bored they must become when they are in a small tank. I would think that anything that operates on much more than just wild instinct would go nuts over time being contained like that. I love my pets but there are some animals I just wouldnt want to keep in captivity. The sentient ones. Its no different from one of us being in prison. They just dont cope like other animals can.

I do hope the HSUS and other animals rights people dont try to attack the park for this but it should not have happened. The trainers can read those animals. I have seen shows and interviews where they say how they are able to easily read when one of the marine animals is acting differently. Stress, frustration etc.. Maybe they can even pick up on weather changes or other nature related things like some other animals can. Who knows. The one real fact is that Orca should not have been bothered when it was acting differently.

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I'm sorry, but after working with horses for years, I find them to be rather unintelligent animals. Pigs are by FAR more intelligent.

I've often wondered if the reason pigs haven't been given the mirror test is because no one wants to open up that can of worms. lol

I'm sure it wouldn't be an easy feeling if it turned out that one of our primary food species was self-aware.

this isn't anything more then the common play an orca will do unfortunately it also drowns the person its playing with had it been an actual attack the lady would have been eaten fortunately the whale will not die which is insane that it was put on the table however as a Marine Biologist student I feel for the girl who passed and pray for her and her family.

Lance

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Originally Posted by Jay_Bunny

Thank you, thank you, thank you! Orcas are dolphins, not whales! Orcas were my favorite animal as a child. I used to want to be a trainer, but then developed a fear of deep water. :rolleyes:

One of the deaths associated with this animal is not necessarily the whale's fault. A homeless man was in the park after hours and may have simply drowned in the tank.

I am in agreement that this orca should not be used for show, especially since the trainers knew there was something wrong. I'm sorry but an animal that is acting stressed out, not responding to commands, etc should not be put in the show. Maybe the animal was just having an off day. The trainers should have recognized the animal's behavior as abnormal and left him/her alone. Its kind of like looking at a lion that's acting weird and saying "Looks like something is wrong with Leo. Oh well, lets make him do tricks anyway." and then the lion turns around and mauls the trainer. Simple animal behavior logic.

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Your analogy is so funny. I couldn't help but laugh. I would have left leo and the orca alone. Any animal that acts weird, even if it is a human being, will be left alone by me. What I am learning from all of this bad publicity of housing wild animals is that some people should not be housing them and people need to think more often about what they do when they house wild animals. Education is the key.

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Originally Posted by lance

this isn't anything more then the common play an orca will do unfortunately it also drowns the person its playing with had it been an actual attack the lady would have been eaten fortunately the whale will not die which is insane that it was put on the table however as a Marine Biologist student I feel for the girl who passed and pray for her and her family.

Lance

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I think you're dramatically underestimating an orca's intelligence. Orcas play with TOYS by dragging them down under the water--they don't play with each other that way, and they don't ordinarily play with humans that way, either. The Orcas kept by Sea World are fish-eating culture orcas--they're not mammal eaters. They were not, at least, crazy enough to try to work with animals that have learned from birth to hunt sea lions and whales. So at no time in this animal's history was he taught to grab living things off of land and drag them under the water.
Orcas tend to be very gentle with humans--they can see how small we are, and they realize we must be fragile, just like a baby orca. This reaction to our mammalian nature, and our relative helplessness in the water, is most likely the reason why dolphins have occasionally rescued drowning people--they push them to the surface the way they would help an ailing dolphin.
What has never ceased to amaze me is why attacks on humans by cetaceans are so rare. I wonder what it is about humans that makes them decide to treat us gently rather than treating us the way they would some other sea mammal.
Tilicum wasn't behaving normally--the agitation of the other animals seems clear enough indication that he wasn't just in a playful mood. This is the behavior of a dolphin trying to harm or kill another dolphin--they will grab it or swim over it, drag it down, and then keep pushing it down to try to drown it. They're perfectly aware that we need air.