Wild Orcas Sometimes Offer To Share Their Lunch With Humans

They amuse us by wearing salmon hats, enrage us by sinking our expensive yachts, and now they have been documented sharing their meals with us — why?

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Food sharing amongst orcas can also be extended to include food sharing with humans. (Credit: Jared Towers with kind permission.)

A recent report reveals that wild orcas, Orcinus orca, also known as killer whales, sometimes offer food to humans, according to the report’s lead author, Jared Towers, executive director of Bay Cetology, a whale research organization based in British Columbia.

Orcas are the oceans’ apex predators — the top predators in the seas — and they have correspondingly large brains that are second only to humans in relation to their body size. So clearly, they are capable of advanced communication skills (even including mimicking human speech; more here), cognition and emotional intelligence.

Furthermore, prey sharing is common in orca culture, so maybe sharing their lunch with humans is not really so strange after all. In fact, throughout the world, orcas of every age have presented prey to humans, and just about everything was on the menu: from sea otters, harbor seals, and gray whales, to green turtles, eagle rays, starfish, jellyfish, and even common murres, just to name a few species.