Do killer whales kill people?

Question

Do killer whales kill people?

Answer 1

Fortunately for us we arent on the menu for killer whales.. They are wild and considered dangerous. They probably do attack people if they feel threatened. They eat other whales hence the name whale killers!.. I mean killer whale!!

Answer 2

well spite what free willy shows us killer whales get their name from killing. there hasnt been reports of any killing humans but it can happen. and it not cuz they kill alot of fish, and thats how they get their name its cuz they are brutal killers chasing pray onto actual shore to eat them. if you get between a pod and food id assume u would be food to

Answer 3

Desite the name, Killer whales or orca's are rarely documented killing man. I believe the ratio is one (wild) case every few years, and it ussually us a case of mistaken identety, like a seal.

hope it helps if your planning a trip to Alaska any time soon!

Answer 4

No. A wild orca (the other name for a killer whale) has never killed a person. Orcas kept in captivity have, understandably, injured and on rare occasions, killed their handlers. This is, however, the result of the injust and unnatural environment the animal has been kept in.

Orcas are extremely intelligent mammals and can easily distinguish prey from humans. A wildlife photographer who loved to get dangerously close to the animals he was photographing once came into close vicinity of orcas while they were hunting seal pups from a beach. He remembers one orca swimming right up to him, looking at him directly in the eye, before swimming past him to catch a seal. The orca could have killed him easily and instantly. However, it chose not to. The name "killer whale" gives this amazing animal a bad first impression.

Answer 5

No dont believe the hype

Answer 6

yea they got that name from killing ppl

Answer 7

prolly

Answer 8

No. People kill killer whales...

Answer 9

i hope not.

Answer 10

They can and have.  They don't generally target people, though.  It's usually a case of mistaken identity, with the whale thinking you're a seal, which is their preferred food.  Same thing with most shark attacks, too.

Answer 11

The correct answer to this question is "Not anymore."  In fact, killer whales (Orcinas orca) have not killed a single person that we know of since WWII.  Before WWII, a search of old newspaper accounts revealed about ten deaths per year from orca attacks.

What does orca behavior have to do with WWII?  During WWII, all of the nations involved, for their own survival, had to develop anti-submarine warfare capabilities.  Fake subs to practice with were prohibitively expensive, and killer whales were cheap and plentiful, so we used them instead.  They were known man-killers, so why not?

We probably killed at least a third of the world's orcas, and if we couldn't find an orca, any old whale would do as well.  Not only did we declare war on them, we didn't even have the grace to notice when they surrendered.  That surrender decision, and the accompanying decision to exclude us from their diet, are surely the reasons there are still killer whales in the wild today.  One of the ways we know that killer whales used to eat people is that every culture on the face of the earth with an ocean shoreline has, in its legends, tales of orcas munching on the citizenry.

Did you know that a killer whale doesn't have to get anywhere near you to kill you?  When orcas echolocate, they send out sound in a cone about ten degrees in diameter.  But by using tiny muscles to change the shape of an oil-filled organ in their heads called a melon, orcas can focus that sound to a point, like sunlight through a magnifying glass, and they can whistle so loudly the sound can literally tear your cells apart causing almost instant death.

Orcas aren't the only ones with this kind of weapon, every whale, dolphin and porpoise with teeth has a variant of it including the giant sperm whale (Physeter macrocephalus), better known as Moby d**k.  Yet the toothed whales (Odontocetes) are so sparing in their use of this fantastic weapon that it's existence wasn't even suspected until 1937 and wasn't taken seriously until 1982, and even then it took almost a decade for proof to emerge.

Answer 12

its a carnivorous mammal, it will eat you.

Answer 13

No, they do not they tend to only kill what they need such as seals, birds, but I am sure if you jump in the water and bug them they might. they are really caring animals and there proper name is Orca!

It is more mistaken identity if they do

Answer 14

They can, but normally they don't.  People are not a part of their normal diet.

One person was killed by 3 captive orcas in Sealand aquarium in British Columbia in 1991.  A trainer fell into the tank; the whales were not used to people in the tank, and one of the whales was pregnant.  This may explain why they drowned the trainer, who knows?  

A couple of other times captive orcas have attacked people, but not fatally.  

Orca whales are quite intelligent and routinely put on shows at places like Sea World; they obviously enjoy the attention and the applause of the crowd.

Of course a wild orca will rarely have contact with people, and will be looking for something more familiar to eat.

Answer 15

There is no documentation of a "killer" whale having ever killed a human being. The only time one has ever even tried to harm a human was in an incident at an aquarium where the poor Orca (I prefer to call them Orcas) was probably stressed into a kind of cetacean breakdown. It dragged a trainer around a bit. No real harm was done, and the trainer was still friends with the Orca afterwards.

In the wild they can kill other whales, particularly the Great Whales.

Back at the beginning of the 20th century, in a place called Eden in NSW Australia, a pack of wild Orcas teamed up with a land-based whaling station. They would alert the whalers that they had driven a great whale into Twofold bay, and would actually help the whalers to hunt. They would exhaust the great whale and hold it against the longboat for the harpooner to kill it.

When whalers were occasionally knocked into the ocean, it was not uncommon for the Orcas to grab them, carry them back up and hold them against the boat so that other crewmembers could get them back on board again.

Try googling Old Tom and Eden.

Orcas are closesly related to dolphins (which they also eat).

Answer 16

Hmmmmmm..I think so.

Answer 17

no, they are also called orca whales. they are called killer whales because they kill a lot of fish.

Answer 18

Hence the name "KILLER whale"

Answer 19

killer whales kill! they love human flesh mwa ha ha ha ha. no acually they are completely harmless unless you make them well angry, but they are extremly strong

Answer 20

No, a killer whale has never been documented for killing a human being.

Answer 21

They can and sometimes do, but not on purpose.  Killer whales are actually sharks that kill whales.  They used to be called whale killers for obvious reasons and the name got reversed (maybe to make it sound better?).  Usually, any shark that attacks a person will spit the person out because the person does not taste good to the shark.  Unfortunately, sharks (including killer whales) swim so fast (and so far down) that the person drowns or bleeds to death while trying to get to the surface.