ipl-logo

Killer Whales Essay

1390 Words6 Pages

Introduction There are thousands of marine mammals in the world. Each has its special characteristics. One in particular stands out from the rest. Killer whales, also known as “Orcas,” are the powerful rulers of the ocean. A male killer whale can be almost 33 feet in length, which is as big as a medium-sized bus. These colossal creatures were named “killer whales” by ancient sailors who saw them preying on large whales. People think Killer Whales are just big animals in the sea, but there are more informations about them beyond that.
Physical Descriptions Killer whales have a black top that is largely covered in white patches near the eyes and on the undersides. The dorsal (top) part of its body is black, with a pale white to …show more content…

At the top of the food chain in the ocean are killer whales, which means that there are no other sea animals that can hunt them. Fish, seals, and squid are just a few of the various prey that killer whales consume. Killer whales eat other whales as well. Surprisingly, killer whales can even hunt sharks. According to the article, “Do Killer Whales Have Predators | Can Anything Kill Orca? | WHALE FACTS”, it adduce, “…when hunting sharks, one or several killer whales may attempt to distract the shark while another killer whale sneaks up from behind or underneath the shark to ram it and flip it over.” The reason why they flip over the shark is that if it is flipped it can’t attack the killer whales. They have their own ways to hunt and persist in this daunting survival. To add on, adults eat about 550 pounds of food every day and not all of the food comes from the sea. For example, they will snatch sea birds that settle in the water and grab seals …show more content…

| WHALE FACTS, https://www.whalefacts.org/killer-whales-predators/, (01/18/2023)

Orca (Killer Whale) | American Cetacean Society, https://www.acsonline.org/orca--killer-whale-, (03/01/2023)

Diagram with labels:, https://lsintspl3.wgbh.org/en-us/lesson/Whales1-13/15?as_guest=True, (03/01/2023)

Marine pollution facts and information, https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/critical-issues-marine-pollution, (03/01/2023)

Habitat and Distribution | SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment, https://seaworld.org/animals/all-about/killer-whale/habitat/, (03/01/2023)
Books:

All About Orcas by Eric Doty, published in 2017, by the EYEDISCOVER COMPANY, page 23 (12/06/2022)

Scary Creatures Killer Whales by John Malam, published in 2008, by The Salariya Book Company Ltd, page 14, 7, and 26

Show More
Related

Why Is Tilikum To Blame?

505 Words | 3 Pages

Blackfish written by Gabriela Cowperthwaite. From the start attraction at Sealand of the Pacific in 1969, the aquarium grew attention for their orcas that would perform. Years later a two year old whale was captured and arrived in 81’. His name was Tilikum, coming in at two years old and 4,000 pounds. How do you go about taking orcas out of their setting, changing how they feel, and go about certain lies of how situations occurred?

Read More

Gabriella Cowperthwaite Blackfish Essay

886 Words | 4 Pages

These whales are unpredictable and dangerous because they are aggravated as shown in the film; they need to be kept free in the wild. We can either stop capturing and training whales, or people will continue to be injured and even killed. This is an example of the either/or logical fallacy, and it is proven in the film. The documentary, Blackfish, is jam packed full of arguments

Read More

Tilikum Downfall

1140 Words | 5 Pages

This is the story of a young orca whale named Tilikum, One of the largest orcas at SeaWorld, He weighs 12,500 pounds and is about 22 feet in length. 33 years ago on November 1983 a 2 year old orca was captured in Iceland where he was named Tilikum and was approximately 13 feet long; Torn away from family and put in a cement holding tank in a Marine Zoo in Iceland the poor calf would swim in small circles and float aimlessly on the surface. Tilikum later on was transferred to SeaLand in Canada where he had to share a tank with two female orcas (Haida and Nootak) who were regularly injuring Tilikum. He was forced to do shows 8 times a day, 7 days a week; The stress and exhaustion gave him stomach Ulcers.

Read More

Whales In Captivity Research Paper

381 Words | 2 Pages

There has been no record of people getting harmed by Orcas in the wild and that raised many question about Tili’s sudden outburst. Researches have shown that whales in captivity have

Read More

Seaworld's Depiction Of Whales In The Film, Blackfish

1061 Words | 5 Pages

They hunted these whales, and ripped them from their family. They would always take the young ones away from their home. John Crowe, who was one of the many people that helped hunt the orcas, talked about how devastated he was to do that. They would grab the babies, but the family wouldn’t leave. They stayed watching them take their young and all he could think of was that this is equivalent to someone kidnapping a human child from their mother.

Read More

' Behind Closed Tanks: Documentary Analysis

1225 Words | 5 Pages

Tilikum was not the only orca mentioned in the documentary but since he is well known (because of SeaWorld) caught they eye of many. Former Sealand trainers interviewed say that the park’s female killer whales would aggressively gang up on Tilikum especially when they were confined in a 20-foot-by- 30-foot pool overnight (Halverstadt). Aggressive behaviors has led to three deaths by Tilikum. Many say that this behavior comes from a aggressive side of Tilikum that is a side that doesn’t want to hurt anyone but has such a anger because he is being held captive. To be taken out of your water and away from your normal everyday living is very disturbing but what causes lots of emotions to go up is when we see that orcas are getting separated from other orcas they have lived with their entire lives or even birthed.

Read More

Killer Whales In Captivity Research Paper

1140 Words | 5 Pages

(Blackfish). Killer whales in the wild are aggressive towards each other just as they are to humans, in 1989 an accident involving two whales: Kandu and Corky resulted in Kandu bleeding to death. (Kirby 2) this would have never happened if the whales had the enough space they needed to separate from each other. Contrastingly, killer whales in the wild are more peaceful toward each other and humans. There is only one accident of an orca biting someone in the wild.

Read More

Argumentative Essay On Blackfish

1170 Words | 5 Pages

The documentary film entitled Blackfish, is a successful documentary, which captivates the audience through empirical evidence, captivating plot, and real life interviews. The blackfish documentary started out with a gripping testimonial from several men who had admitted to hunting killer whales for seaworld. Through their heartbreaking testimonies, it was revealed that they would go out on large ships and produce large nets in order to trap them then reel them in. Even worse, the orcas would begin crying, making high pitched screams at the loss of their loved ones. After only a couple seasons of orca hunting, the orcas began to realize what was happening and concocted a plan.

Read More

Humpback Whales Research Paper

549 Words | 3 Pages

The Humpback Whale (Megaptera novaeangliae) is one of the largest of the Cetaceans. They are fairly well known, even outside of the scientific community. They are identifiable by their dark grey dorsal color, white underbellies, very long pectoral flippers and by their habits of breaching and raising their tales above the water before diving. Their range expands tropical, temperate, and sub polar waters all around the world. They migrate in search of breading grounds and feeding grounds.

Read More

Harp Seal Research Paper

909 Words | 4 Pages

Overhunting has had an effect on several different species, the one I will be telling you about is the Harp seal. The harp seal is located in the “west ice” of eastern Greenland, in the “east ice” of eastern Russia, and off the cost of east Canada and are currently being over hunted by humans. Harp seals, and others like the Namibian cape seal, are currently slaughtered more than any other marine mammal in the world. Harp seals are usually 3 weeks to 3 months old when they are clubbed (being hit with a club, like a golf club, until you dead), bludgeoned (being hit in the head with a large, heavy object really hard), or shot to death by a few hundred or a few thousand fishermen, depending on how well they can get to the seal, each year. Harp

Read More

Argumentative Essay On Orcas In Captivity

2097 Words | 9 Pages

Orcinus orca is more commonly known as Orcas or Killer Whales, which has lost popularity as most people don’t desire to perceive them as cold blood killers. The biggest questions about Orcas; should sea aquariums, similar to SeaWorld, keep their Orcas in captivity? “Approximately 1,000 [wild Orca] whales have been individually identified in Alaskan waters through photographs” (National Marine Mammal Laboratory, 2006). The lifespan of free Orcas depends on the sex; females have been well-known to survive for over 80 years where males tend to perish in their late 60. Granny a wild Orca was also known as J2 of the Southern Resident Orcas thought to be around 105 when she passed away.

Read More

Persuasive Essay On Seaworld

705 Words | 3 Pages

Orcas are incredibly smart, so the mother orcas would swim away from where the herding was happening. As a result to this, SeaWorld began releasing planes that would fly over the sea and find the mothers, because the orcas had to come up for air eventually. They would throw bombs into the water, so the orcas would be forced to go into nets. One of the whales, named Tilikum, who recently died in January of 2017, was kidnapped from the ocean at the young age of two. A man named Ted Griffin, who helped capture the whales, killed a mother whale in front of her daughter, to later be named Shamu; the first performing whale at SeaWorld.

Read More

Noise Pollution In California

1717 Words | 7 Pages

In 2000, a mass stranding of whales in the Bahamas revealed hemorrhaging near the brain, ear, and fats in the head from a sonar used by the U.S. Navy during an exercise (National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration and US Department of the Navy 2001). In 2002, another stranding occurred in the Canary Islands and pathologists examined the bodies of stranded beaked whales to reveal hemorrhaging in the same areas of the head as the whales from the Bahamas, as well as in the kidneys (Fernández et al. 2005). Upon further inspection, there seemed to be other complications, such as lesions and embolisms, in the vessels and tissues surrounding organs. Fernandez et al.

Read More

Captive Orcas

1569 Words | 7 Pages

Midgley makes no mentions of orcas among the animals she talks about in this article but she does mention dolphins, which orcas are, so I will assume that this would apply to orcas too. Orcas are known to be social beings which means they have emotion fellowship and according to Midgley, this would mean that we must take into consideration that orcas are our fellow-beings. Thus, the way we treat them is terribly wrong and

Read More

Orinus Orca Research Paper

604 Words | 3 Pages

It is a common misconception of natural instinct and imaginative onlookers; these whales are not people they are wild marine life. It is no secret that killer whales have a bad reputation, however what earned the reputation was sheer unintentional killings. Orinus Orcas are wild marine life that should not be prosecuted like human beings, and the name “Killer Whales” is the result of false

Read More

More about Killer Whales Essay

Related Topics

Open Document