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Orcas that hunted alongside humans might be extinct

96 points| aforelight | 2 years ago |livescience.com | reply

38 comments

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[+] timdiggerm|2 years ago|reply
Their food source was in steep decline due to worldwide commercial whale hunting; extinction is not surprising
[+] acestus5|2 years ago|reply
They went the way of the Dodo. Wildlife that is not afraid of seamen get killed for food.
[+] b800h|2 years ago|reply
It's fascinating to ruminate on how that relationship would have developed over tens of thousands of years if it had been sustainable.
[+] yieldcrv|2 years ago|reply
I gather that global orca populations have a variety of spoken treaties they uphold, so only they pass this information on to each right now

While the humans don’t know them anymore, except in a couple small hunting populations

Following this theory, I found a similar treaty as the “law” mentioned in this article, amongst some of the Salish people in the Pacific Northwest, a lot of the indigenous groups with their own national identities in North America don’t have organized written records and especially not on the internet to reach the broader collective conscious and I think people assume otherwise.

if this phenomenon in the article was reportedly going on for a millennium in that one region of the world, I could see there being cross-drift to other regions

this is supporting my idea that the orcas still communicate it, and act that way towards us because of it, as opposed to any innate symbiotic relationship or general disinterest in violence towards humans

[+] marcosdumay|2 years ago|reply
Well, they seem to innately be disgusted by we as food. They also seem to have some "respect" for we as hunters or something like that (but then, this one is easy to acquire). And differently from almost every other predator on Earth, that "respect" doesn't innately lead to fear.

Since both of those are reciprocal, it's as much an innate relation as you can get with thinking social animals.

[+] xeonmc|2 years ago|reply
Be on the lookout for someone asking to tour an Acrylic fabrication facility.
[+] swiftcoder|2 years ago|reply
Definitely read that as "Orcs"
[+] moomoo11|2 years ago|reply
Orcas that hunted alongside orcs might be extinct.

:(

Wish humans were better stewards of earth. As a human it’s frustrating to watch others engage in destroying the planet instead of taking even simple steps to at least try.