Several orcas can be seen circling the beach and it seems like they are taking turns rubbing themselves on the smooth stones, CBC News reports.
“This is awesome” one of the whale watchers says as a big male orca pushes his way towards them, rubbing himself along the bottom.
“Holey moley,” says another watcher as the enormous dolphins snuffle in the surf. “This is crazy … probably feels like a nice massage.”
This was definitely one lucky day for videographer Chris Wilton.
The Orca Network, on it’s Facebook page posted a statement by Jackie Hildering, who writes the blog “The Marine Detective.”
“Absolutely remarkable footage of northern resident orcas with their culturally unique behaviour of rubbing themselves on beaches like this,” she wrote. “I happen to be with whale researchers Janie Wray and Christie McMillan, and we believe these whales are the A42 matriline. The big male is very distinct. He is A66 born in 1996.”
There are several distinct populations of orcas worldwide, but northern resident killer whales are the only population known to rub on beach stones, and this is a highly ritualized social behavior that only occurs in a few places, the Vancouver Aquarium reports. Now it’s time for the whales to get excited, and they blow the air out of their lungs so that they will sink. Then they scrub their huge bodies on the smooth stones in the shallows.
The aquarium states that the the best-known rubbing beach is located in the Robson Bight-Michael Bigg Ecological Reserve in Johnstone Strait.
Killer whales make their homes wherever their family is, and the resident killer whale pods are matriarchal. Sons and daughters stay with their mothers for the rest of their lives, even when they bear offspring. Brothers and sisters maintain close bonds even after their mother dies, the aquarium reports.
Over time orcas have evolved into powerful predators, but evolutionarily speaking, it appears this wasn’t always so. Their morphology (form and structure) doesn’t seemingly reflect their famous capacity for tackling dangerous prey. Killer whales (Orcinus orca) don’t have armour, and their skin is soft and sensitive, the aquarium reports. Orcas also have conical teeth, which are well-adapted to piercing and holding their prey, instead of slicing through flesh or smashing bone and the teeth aren’t as large as you might expect in an animal that kills whales, not to mention the fact that they are a good deal smaller as well. The aquarium also notes that the lower jaw in orcas isn’t particularly robust, and the portion behind the back teeth is extremely fragile.
When orcas dive, they rarely go below 350 meters and spend only a short time–about 15 minutes on these dives. That’s far less time than many other marine mammals, so it seems likely that their appearance and physical abilities suggest that earlier lineages fed on fish or relatively small prey throughout most of the orca’s evolutionary history.
So what makes them such awesome predators?
Since the bodies of these awesome critters are best suited for snarfing fish, why are they so successful at catching marine mammals as well? It’s because of their big brain, which comes in handy during these pursuits. They use said brain to develop sophisticated hunting strategies and they hunt in highly-coordinated groups that are difficult for the prey to evade. Some folks even call them the Tyrannosaurus of the sea, the aquarium notes. Instead, killer whales hunt in a fashion that isn’t so different from humans–they use intelligence and teamwork to achieve their awesome power.
There are approximately 250 northern resident orcas, according to the aquarium.
