Documentary: Discovery: Killer Whales

So I thought this was a very interesting documentary. It's only about 45 minutes to an hour long, so there is a lot of information in a little time.

It starts off with this lady who is a biologist who studies Killer Whales. She starts in South America where these Killer Whales come during seal breeding season so they can feed off the small unaware pups. It's a very interesting part where the whale actually goes to the shore to catch a seal pup and then has to get back in the water before it gets suck on the beach. This has to take skill. It takes the whale less than a minute to be able to do this.

Guess what, so Killer Whales aren't actually whales, they are a type of dolphin, and now that you read that, it makes sense to you now. But they are a type of dolphin that.. eats their own kind. Yup, that's right, they actually will kill dolphins and eat them. In South Africa, there is a large swarm of fish that come each year that bring a ton of different species of animals, and one of them is Dolphins that are in huge pods of 100+. Divide and Conquer. That's how the killer whales do it. They use high intelligence to get this cousin that is faster to wear out until they can simply knock it down.

Communication, different pods of killer whales use a different language. It's actually just like humans do. People in Asia don't use the same language as Europe and so on and so forth. Killer Whales don't either. Through this the elders are able to pass their knowledge down to their family members. Killer whale pods stay together for a lifetime.

Sharks or Killer Whales, which is the prime predator? Well if you think about it, whales are in pods, sharks are solitary... ding ding ding, bummer for the sharks. Flip a shark over and it gets paralyzed, and the killer whales figured this out and has passed it down to their family in California.

So in the end they go to New Zealand where the lady biologist is from, and when the killer whales come up to the boat, she knows them and it's as if they recognize and know her. It's quite amazing, but I guess just as a pet knows it's owner because of often interaction, the same could work with these killer whales. In New Zealand these whales like sting rays. Yeah, that's something I would want to do, get near a tail that is poisonous and very sharp... yeah, good luck. And, that's exactly what the killer whales go after! The tail... They do it quite efficiently, though.

This documentary shows that intelligence these sea mammals have. It's quite amazing to realize this.