Orcas Have Learned Brutal New Hunting Techniques to Feed in The Open Sea : ScienceAlert
A population of orcas hanging out far off the coast of California have worked out the best methods for hunting their prey in open waters.
With a diet consisting almost entirely of marine mammals, orcas need to maximize their hunting success to make sure that everyone gets fed.
Closer to the coast where the species on which the orcas feed can be easily cornered and caught, competition can be fierce. Heading further out to sea can provide more food for those who know how to catch it.
The orcas making up the transient population of the Northeast Pacific have figured out that seals and baby whales can be caught with a mix of cunning and brute force. They ram their prey, or slap it into the air with their tails, before settling in for the feast.
“The subpopulation of transient killer whales we observed in Monterey Bay preferentially stayed in open, deep water, and primarily fed on seasonally available California sea lions, gray whale calves, and northern elephant seals,” write a team led by marine biologist Josh McInnes of the University of British Columbia in Canada.
“They exhibited specialized hunting techniques that differ from those used to capture marine mammals in shallow near-shore waters associated with reefs, rocky outcroppings, and islets.”
Those darn Orcas. Always brutalizing something.