Killer Whales, or Orcas as they are officially known, have been swimming on earth for around
11 million years ...despite their dramatic name, they don’t actually hunt humans.
So what would happen if they were no longer swimming free in the oceans of the world?
Hello and welcome back to Life’s Biggest Questions, the channel that loves a deep dive
into a what if.
I am your host, Rebecca Felgate and today I am asking What If Killer Whales Went Extinct?
I recently went on a whale watching trip in Victoria - British Columbia and saw a little
family of Orcas!
I learned that male calfs of the pod stick with their mothers forever...which is pretty
sweet… the mummies!
I actually learned a lot of facts that I am going to pepper throughout this video.
I loved seeing the Orcas, it was incredible.
So… my question to you before we get into this video is : have you ever seen an orca
in real life?
Do you know any cool facts about them?
Comments box - Like share sub.
Okay, so killer whales, or orcas….
These majestic creatures have been swimming around in the ocean for millions of years,
long surpassing humans who have been around for 200,000 years or so.
Killer Whales are an integral part of our eco system and can be found around the world
but most predominantly in the Pacific Northwest, The Southern Ocean around Antartica, Coastal
Alaska, the North Atlantic and occasionally have been spotted om waters off the Gulf of
Mexico, the Bahamas, Florida, Hawaii, The Galapagos and even New Zealand and South Africa.
Although they are far spread - there are only around 50,000 killer whales world wide.
Did you know that different pods of Orca from different areas of the world actually speak
a different language to one another - which is why putting whales from different pods
in the same tanks and awful places like seaworld was such a bad idea.
The Pacific Northwest population is in danger, with the numbers decreasing to 76.
A calf was born in May 2019, the first successful birth since 2016.
It seems in this area of the world 70% of Orca pregnancies are failing and many are
dying at a very young age.
The reason for the fall in the population of Orcas is linked to fall of King Salmon
in the area, meaning they’re a lot hungrier than before.
The fall is also due to noisy boats and sonar activity which makes it hard for whales to
communicate and echolocate under water in the way they are used to, meaning they get
confused and can’t always find food….
And of course they’re suffering from the effects of water pollution.
While other populations of Orca are not so endangered, pollution is also a massive risk
for them.
According to a Guardian Article from September 2018, a banned chemical called PCB are leaking
into the sea contaminating the worlds whales, which they’re passing on to their calves.
The chemical was widely used in the 1930s in electrical products, plastics and paints
and they were banned in the 70s and 80s, but while the chemical isn’t used anymore, 80%
of the products created using it still exist and are leaking the toxin into the ocean.
The article says PCB concentrations found in killer whales can be 100 times what is
considered a safe level and therefore can severely damage reproductive organs, cause
cancer and damage their immune systems.
It seems most in danger of PCG are the North Pacific whales, but also the UK’s last pod,
whales off the coast of Gibraltar, Japan and Brazil.
In fact Zoologist Paul Jepson has claimed we’re living amid killer whale apocalypse.
So, what if they did die out?
Well we have already discovered a major reason for the killer whales dying out in the north
pacific is the diminishing amount of King Salmon...which is a perfect example of how
the exosystem is interlinked.
Less salmon has meant less whales… a lot of people think that as Whales are Apex Predators,
if they went extinct it wouldn’t have a knock on effect, but it would.
When Whales die, anywhere between 25 - 159 tonnes of biomatter sinks to the bottom of
the ocean, in something called marine snow.
This biological debris brings food to places where it is hard to come by...so if killer
whales died out, our deep oceans would become a lot more sparse.
Whales also eat Plankton, fish, sharks and even seals… seals, by the way, kill far
more humans than so called killer whales, who have never been reported to have killed
or even attacked a human in the wild, and only two killer whales have harmed humans
while they have been captive ...which of course is a VERY stressful environment for them to
be in.
The excess of animals that would have been preyed on by Oracs is far more of a risk to
humans than if the animal had never gone extinct.
As you can imagine, the foodchain would be out of whack….
Too much plankton, for example can be disastrous.
Too much Plankton means that it can form hamful algal blooms which produce toxic compounds
that can hurt fish, shellfish, mammals, birds and people!
We could be poisoned by eating toxic fish and shellfish from the ocean.
The least of our concerns If Killer Whales did die out is tourism, but make no mistake,
a lot of coastal towns, like Victoria, enjoy increased tourism as a result of Whale presence.
Sure, seaworld would take a hit too….
Luckily they have already started phasing out orcas….I’m sure most of us would much
rather seaworld went extinct than our worlds orcas… but that isn’t really the point.
The point is that, aside from a possible ecological collapse, the world would lose brilliant majestic
creatures that have been known to individually hold naming ceremonies for their children,
creatures that deeply mourn the loss of their dead...creatures that have been around for
much longer than we have.
So, what would that mean?
I suppose the short answer is...we’re probably all somewhat screwed.
SOOOO that is that, hey!
What do you think to the extinction of Orcas?
Let me know your thoughts in the comments section down below!
Before I go I am going to be reading comments from the What If The Amazon Rainforest Never
Existed…
Bennywise said: I love and always will love jaguars!
Black Lyfe said: never seen a pink dolphin before - yes!
They are amazon river dolphins, how beautiful1
Kydex said: What if Elon must was president? THENNNN YOU GET A CAR...YOU GET A CAR...YOU
GET A CAR!