The relationship between the world’s top two apex predators is a complicated
one. In recent months, there have been many stories of orcas attacking boats,
ripping their rudders off and sometimes, even sinking them. In recent decades,
hordes of human visitors have watched orcas at Seaworld perform tricks with their human
counterparts - and we know that sometimes, those orcas kill their human trainers.
And despite the fact orcas have never killed humans in the wild that we know of, humans are
(perhaps rightfully) fearful of these intelligent cetaceans. We appreciate their magnificence,
but there are few humans on this planet who would willingly jump into the sea alongside them.
But before the days of SeaWorld, for a certain time, and in one certain place,
humans didn’t capture orcas, kill them, or fear them. They instead befriended them - working
together to hunt some of the largest creatures in the ocean - humpback and southern right whales.
It's a story about unimaginable cooperation between two very different species. And a
story about what happens when trust is broken, and sacred pacts are abandoned.
In the deep water off the eastern coast of Australia southern right whales and
humpbacks swim by during their annual migrations -
in the summer, towards the south to cooler feeding water,
and in the winter, back north for warmer waters to breed in.
Orcas in the region learned these migration patterns, and between April and November,
they would lie in wait for migrating baleen whales on the southeastern tip of the continent,
and then trap them, and then devour them in the confined waters of TwoFold Bay.
For thousands of years, the Aboriginal people of this area, the Yuin nation, revered these orcas,
with many of their beliefs linking the people with the whales. And when the orcas herded the
baleen whales into the bay, the people were more easily able to spear these whales themselves.
This long standing Aboriginal tradition set the stage for what would become the
most well documented case of orca and human cooperation in history.
When Europeans arrived in the 19th century, they took advantage of the plentiful whales
that passed by the area every year. One family of Scottish whalers, the Davidsons,
set up a whaling station on Twofold Bay, one of the deepest natural harbors in the
southern hemisphere. The Aboriginal people they worked with in the area insisted that no killer
whales be hunted. Instead, the settlers were taught how to work with the orcas.
When the orcas found a whale and herded it into the bay, one of them would break off to
swim closer to the whaling station, at the entrance to the Kiah River,
then begin slapping its tail on the water, making a loud, percussive sound to alert the humans.
Men would race out to their rowboats, equipped with harpoons, and work with the orcas to
take down their prey. Once the bloody hunt was complete, the men would leave the carcass anchored
in place and let the orcas have the first go. The orcas ate the lips and tongue of the baleen whale,
then the humans returned to harvest the rest of the body for its oil.
This exchange was known as the “Law of the Tongue” and it continued
for decades — through multiple generations of the Davidson family.
Among the most famous and recognizable of the orca partners was a large male known as Old Tom.
His help was so invaluable that at one point when George Davidson
was knocked out of a boat during a hunt, Tom circled him in the water,
protecting him from sharks, until he was retrieved by the other humans.
The level of cooperation between these humans and the orcas sounds
almost unbelievable, but it was well-documented.
And Clearly it was mutually beneficial to both species. But it’s also a rare example
of carnivores working together. Humans and lions don’t team up to go after zebras,
nor do humans and polar bears, or any other large predators. So why did the orcas do it?
Orcas have the second-largest brain in the animal kingdom,
following only sperm whales. This big brain contributes not only to their highly social
behavior and wide repertoire of sounds, but also to the way their pods develop distinct cultures.
This is something we’ve explored in great depth in our video about orcas,
but what’s most relevant for the story of the Eden orcas is their adaptive hunting ability.
Orcas in different locations develop different hunting methods and even go after different prey.
In some places, orcas will purposefully beach themselves to attack seals and sea lions. In
other places, orcas will eat anything that comes into their waters—including birds and even moose.
They are the ocean’s apex predator. Thanks to their large brains and dietary flexibility,
they’re perfectly poised to take advantage of whatever new things
come into their environment. And when that new element was human whale hunters,
the orcas seemed more than happy to make use of us.
After all, in one single season, the Eden whale hunters were able to take
in 22 baleen whales. That meant a lot of oil for the humans, and a lot of lip
and tongue meat for the orcas. But sadly, the partnership was doomed to meet an untimely end.
By the early 1900s, baleen whale populations had plummeted due to
extensive hunting by humans around the world.
This meant fewer and fewer opportunities for cooperation between the orcas and the humans,
though it still happened on rare occasions.
That was the case in 1923, when George Davidson went out with
a friend named John Logan. To their surprise, Old Tom suddenly appeared,
herding a humpback whale toward them. Davidson managed to spear the whale,
but instead of anchoring it in the water as was the tradition, Logan insisted they bring
it back in with them – a storm was coming, and he didn’t want the humpback to be washed away.
A tug of war ensued between the boat and Old Tom. The orca tried pulling the lines with his teeth,
as if insisting he get his rightful share of the
prey. But then one of his teeth broke off – a possible death sentence for an orca,
as such injuries can lead to deadly infections and the inability to eat.
It’s reported that Logan fell to his knees and said, “Oh god,
what have I done?” He understood the possible consequences of the battle with Old Tom,
and he knew that an ancient pact had been broken.
Old Tom survived in the wild for seven more years,
and when his body washed ashore in 1930 it was discovered that his missing teeth
had turned into abscesses, and his stomach was empty – he’d starved.
Logan still felt so terrible about what had happened that he helped build a museum about
orcas, into which Old Tom’s skeleton was placed. It’s still there today,
along with stories about the orcas and other whale species of the region.
So was it this human betrayal that led to the end of cooperation between our two species? Or were
other factors at play? Some researchers think the orcas themselves were being hunted in other areas,
and this led to their dwindling number before the fateful incident with Logan and Old Tom. But based
on Old Tom’s behavior, it also seems clear that he at least felt betrayed by the humans’ decision.
Whether the orcas ever would have started hunting with humans again is impossible
to say. The Eden whaling operation shut down in 1929, and whaling has been outlawed since then.
But recently, orcas were once more spotted around Twofold Bay. Maybe they’re ready to forgive
the humans – even if we’re no longer helping them get the best parts of their baleen prey.
The interaction between humans and nature is an area of investigation I deeply love. I am
fascinated to understand how ancient traditions of humans allowed our ancestors to survive in so
many environments around the world. My videos on YouTube occasionally touch on this, but to really,
really start to understand what it would have taken to survive in an ancient environment,
I made a show that puts me to the test - very literally - in tasks that paleolithic humans
would have needed to excel at to survive - called Archeology Quest. In this 5 part docu-game show,
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pottery making, spear throwing, to mushroom foraging with the ultimate question: who will
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Nebula. And right now, the first two episodes are live. We just released episode 2 - which details
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looks. But will the tools we make be able to cut, hack, and slash things in the end? This
is the biggest project I have ever taken on, and its a mix of serious archeology education,
alongside our ridiculous and funny attempts to actually try out what we’ve learned. It was all
possible thanks to Nebula. So to watch the first two episodes, head over to nebula.tv/realscience
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