Welcome to the Wonderful & Tumultuous World of Dolphins
- calmandstrong
- Oct 8
- 31 min read
Updated: Oct 10
Image I (Left): Susan Casey’s Voices in the Ocean: A Journey into the Wild and Haunting World of Dolphins
Image II (Middle): Courtesy of Yuchao, via Shein, Pinterest
“Water has a deep meaning,” Jean-Luc Bizzoli, artist, collaborator and longtime friend of Joan Ocean said. “And the whales and dolphins have a lot to teach us about that. Water is like the biggest computer of the universe. It holds the memory of everything, of all that is and that ever was.”
Image III (Right): James Weeks’ Meditations Across the King’s River: African-Inspired Wisdom for Life’s Journey
Cetaceans are marine mammal groups that includes dolphins, whales, and porpoises, and the Greek ketos, means “sea monster.” Delphinidae, or oceanic dolphins, are the largest family of toothed whales, containing about 37 species that range from the four-foot-long Hector’s Dolphin to the 25-foot Orca, or Killer Whale. The Delphinidae also include Pilot Whales, Melon-Headed Whales, False Killer Whales, and Pygmy Killer Whales. Among this group, the word “whale” indicates a creature’s size, which is very big or bigger than the average dolphin, rather than being a precise scientific description.
Surprisingly, not all dolphins belong to the Delphinidae family, because there are five species of river dolphins, like the prehistoric-looking Amazon Boto, the Ganges River Dolphin, and the now-extinct Baiji, formally found in China’s Yangtze River. According to Susan Casey, author of Voices of the Ocean: A Journey into the Wild and Haunting World of Dolphins, she includes the Beluga Whale in this non-Delphinidae narrative. These white whales are one of two family members of Monodontidae, along with Narwhal Whales. Porpoises are a separate band entirely, although in the past the words “Dolphin” and “Porpoise” were often used interchangeably. The seven species of porpoises, or Phocoenidae, are smaller, and distinct from dolphins.
The dolphins’ evolutionary path is itself a preposterous feat, because their predecessors were land mammals that resembled small, hooved wolves. After an interlude in swamps and coastal lowlands, these aquanauts moved permanently into the water. Over the course of about 22 million years, their limbs turned to fins, their shape became streamlined for swimming, their fur turned to blubber, their nostrils migrated to the top of their heads and developed all the equipment needed to master undersea life. On several occasions during the dolphins’ 95 million years of existence, they morphed into entirely different creatures, adapting to life on both land and the ocean, appearing at various points as solo predators with impressive fangs, ace communicators packing powerful sonar, and social networks juggling complex relationships. The ancestors of dolphins had slipped into the water 55 million years ago, embarking on an evolutionary itinerary all their own.
Dolphins are blessed with perfect undersea hydrodynamic bodies. They swim faster than physics would seem to allow, given the density of water and the amount of muscle they have. Their bodies are also adapted to speed, navigation, plunging into the depths of the ocean, and keeping warm. Dolphins can stay awake and alert for 15 days straight, and when they sleep, dolphins never close both eyes, and don’t sleep like humans, because dolphins are conscious breathers. Which means whenever they take in oxygen it’s a decision, not an autonomous body function, which makes sense because they are air-breathing mammals who happen to live in the sea. Because each breath is intentional, dolphins must keep swimming, stay vigilant, and always maintain system operations at all times. They can operate two hemispheres of their brain independently; while one side runs the show, the other side rests. It’s a juggling act, so it’s not a wonder why Spinner Dolphins aren’t always rambunctiously playful when they pull back into the bay.
While swimming together, dolphins look out for each other, and their strategies, their physiologies, and their routines work for the continued health of the pod. For dolphins, their strength is in their numbers. If a dolphin is knocked out underwater and its body continues to try to suck air, it would drown. Dolphins themselves understand this, because when a dolphin loses consciousness its pod mates will lift it to the surface, holding it up until revived.
Scientists have marveled at dolphins’ healing abilities, which include infection-resistant, pain-free, hemorrhage-proof rebounds from even the deepest wounds. Dolphins have a list of capabilities that could qualify as magical, because they can see with their hearing, deploying biological sonar to effectively produce X-ray vision, because dolphins can see through objects. For instance, they know when another dolphin, or a human is pregnant, sick, or injured. Their natural echolocation skills outperform the most sophisticated nuclear submarines created by humans, and scientists suspect dolphins can even use their sonar abilities to determine another creature’s emotional state. They can communicate at frequencies nearly an order of magnitude higher than anything humans can discern and navigate electrical and magnetic fields imperceptible to humans. They hear sounds up to 160 kHz, eight times higher than humans. Dolphins’ ultrasonic capabilities, according to Joan Ocean, Psychologist and New Age Dolphin Guru, are not just a means for the dolphins to navigate and hunt fish. She described their sonar as an advanced form of expression that can alter reality, opening portals into other dimensions.
“These tones can transform all things. They can heal and change our bodies and environments. They can dematerialize and materialize matter, and even change the physical structure of objects (demonstrated in the third dimension by sound that can shatter glass).” – Joan Ocean
Ocean also stated it’s not that dolphins heal people. It’s about being with them, and this helps people regain their natural healthy state.
During ancient times, in ancient Egypt, there were dolphin images inside the Great Pyramid. In medieval West Africa, the Dogon people claim their forefathers were dolphin-like beings called Nommos, who descended to Earth from Sirius, a star system in the constellation Canis Major.
In ancient Europe, the civilizations of ancient Greece and Rome were dolphin crazy, because dolphins were painted on palace walls, sculpted into statues, stamped on gold coins, and tattooed onto bodies. Ancient Greece took their love for dolphins a bit further by giving dolphins the same rights, or maybe greater rights than humans, because a man killing a disobedient slave and man killing a dolphin was considered the same: murder. Also in ancient Europe, in the art of the ancient Minoan civilization (present-day island of Crete, located in southern Europe in the Mediterranean Sea), dolphins show up with startling frequency. It seemed the Minoans embraced nature, especially the ocean, rather than fearing, exploiting, or trying to conquer it, like other ancient civilizations that followed them. When Susan Casey went to Crete, she seen one of the ancient art pieces of the Minoans, and she first noticed festive dolphin pods, and they were everywhere, painted in cobalt, scarlet, rust, and ochre, vaulting over the ships, escorting the flotilla, and in some cases, the dolphins were mingling with the Minoan crowds on the shore. Striped Dolphins, Common Dolphins, and Bottlenose Dolphins were once among the Mediterranean's liveliest and most visible inhabitants; but now during the modern era, it is rare to spot a single fin.
It’s tempting to project superpowers onto dolphins, but these mystical creatures have it in them to be cranky and withdrawn and have their own version of a bad day. It is now widely known that dolphins don’t always act gentle, or the perma-smiling unicorns they’re often made out to be, because their range of less-than-cuddly behaviors is quite complete. Also, despite the vast differences between the human and cetacean species, both equally resemble each other.
“It’s like dolphins and whales are living in these massive, multicultural, undersea societies. Really the closest analogy we have for it would be ourselves.” – Hal Whitehead, A Marine Biologist from Dalhousie University
In any group of dolphins, they are found in cliques and posses, duos and trios and quartets, mothers and babies and spinster aunts, frisky bands of horny teenage males, wily hunters, burly bouncer, sage elders, which means their associations are anything but random. Dolphins are strategists. They’re also highly social chatter-boxes who are intelligent because they can recognize themselves in a mirror, count, cheer, giggle, feel despondent, stroke each other, adorn themselves, use tools, make jokes, play politics, enjoy music, bring presents on a date, introduce themselves, rescue one another from dangerous situations, deduce, infer, manipulate, improvise, from alliances, throw tantrums, gossip, scheme, empathize, seduce, grieve, comfort, anticipate, fear, and love, just like human beings.
Humans have long known that the brains of dolphins are impressive, bigger than the brains humans consider the gold standard: the human brain. Yet science still searches for answers to what dolphins are doing with such metabolically expensive machinery. No creature would cart around a big brain if this heavy artillery wasn’t in some way essential for its survival. A clue emerged when dolphin brains, like humans’, were found to contain von Economo neurons: specialized cells that relate to higher notions like empathy, intuition, communication, and self-awareness. Interestingly, dolphins have far more of these neurons than humans do, and they are thought to have developed them 30 million years ago, about 29.8 million years before Homo sapiens.
Humans Domestic Violent Relationship with Dolphins
The Cove, a documentary about a barbaric dolphin hunt in Taiji, Japan, riveted audiences, and went on to win the Oscar for Best Documentary in 2010. Each year the movie showed, local fishermen conducting the hunt of driving pods of different dolphins, like Bottlenose, Striped, White-sides, Risso, and any other dolphin they could catch. They were forced into a narrow cove, then netting off the entrance and killing the animals with gaffs and long-handed knives. They get rid of as many dolphins as possible, whom they view as competition for what few fish remain in the oceans. The fishermen claim, what they were doing was nothing more than “pest control.”
Most of the captured dolphins end up in Japanese supermarkets and restaurants, although dolphin meat is highly contaminated with mercury and other toxins, but some are not. Younger female dolphins and calves are separated, examined by trainers and dolphin brokers, and then sold to marine parks for six-figure prices. Every year, the hunters kill or sell thousands of dolphins. Japan is not the only place in the world where dolphins are getting slaughtered, because in California in the United States of America, Bottlenose Dolphins were suffering from gaping skin lesions, and in Florida in the U.S., dolphins fall victim to runaway cancers. Across the Atlantic in Europe, Striped Dolphins have washed up emaciated and riddles with herpes, their immune systems dangerously compromised. Dolphins from Australia, North and South America, to the island of Tahiti, are laden with industrial pollutants, like pesticides, heavy metals, flame retardants, carcinogens of the most noxious kinds, that their bodies are disposed of as hazardous waste.
Also, the acoustically sensitive dolphins must content with a clinging underwater mayhem in the form of drilling, ship engines, oil rig construction, explosives, and submarine sonar that can blast sound across entire ocean basins, and harasses millions of animals, and can kill them. Sonar is the navy’s main tool, used to detect the presence of enemy submarines and other underwater threats. The brawniest sonar system can flood the water with 236 decibels of sound, which is about the same intensity as a rocket launch. While the navy is more concerned with undersea war games, dolphins and whales are affected and have often been stranded en masse with blood streaming out of their eyes and ears. The military of the sea has proven to wreak havoc on cetaceans, driving them away from feeding areas, causing them to beach in panic, etc. The U.S. Navy has battled all the way to the Supreme Court to avoid even the most modest restrictions. In their stance, the U.S. Navy was defiant stating it will strafe the oceans wherever and whenever it wants, and anyone who disagrees with it is jeopardizing national and global security.
“The future for dolphins is a lot gloomier than their smiling faces suggests.” – The Magazine New Scientist wrote in an Editorial
Scientists soon learned that dolphin sonar was anything but basic. As one researcher put it: “To say that dolphins echolocate is like saying Michelangelo painted church ceilings.” Dolphins generate ultrasonic clicks using structures in their nasal passages (near the blowhole); a fat-filled sac in their foreheads called a melon focuses the sound. When the clicks hit an object the dolphins receive the echoes through their lower jaws, and the acoustic feedback is transmitted up to their ears and into their brain, where it’s interpreted and relayed to other senses, such as vision. Their clicks emanate in a stream, up to two thousand clicks per second, but dolphins can both aim and adjust each click individually, changing direction, volume and frequency, a feat of unimaginable precision. Dolphins can even send out two click streams at once, in different directions, at varying frequencies. Using this sense, dolphins can detect minute variations in the size or composition of identical-looking objects, even at a distance. This system that they have is spectacular, and ideal for life underwater, where light is scarce but sound travels easily, 4.3 times faster than it does in air. When manmade noises flood the dolphins’ environment, it’s like humans being blinded by light so bright that humans can’t make out anything. Sounds are pressure waves, battering walls of energy, so for a more appropriate analogy, add to that the retinas of humans painfully explode in the glare.
When loud sounds boom through the ocean, all marine animals suffer, not just the noise-sensitive cetaceans. Underwater detonations have a hellish history, because in the past, the U.S. and Russia have even conducted nuclear tests in the ocean, generating aquatic mushroom clouds that exploded thousands of feet in the air, lighting the skies afire, boiling the sea, shooting out shockwaves and tsunamis that engulfed ships and entire islands, miles away. Not all damaging underwater noises are percussive or ear-shattering, because some like commercial ship propellors, drilling, dredging, and cable-laying, are a constant, droning backdrop, low frequency vibrations that reverberate for miles. Scientists refer to this as “acoustic smog,” and they estimate that its levels have risen tenfold over the past 25 years. Industrial noise clangs, roars and hums through the oceans, obscuring the natural sounds animals use for mating, hunting, avoiding predators, navigating, migrating, and communicating. As they try to escape the din or struggle to cope with it, they become chronically stressed and susceptible to illness.
“The dolphins are being trained so that they can do any variety of exotic tasks. We have lost many animals. They run away very frequently.” – Michael Greenwood, A Dolphin Expert
Through the decades, countless experiments have been done to tease apart the inner workings of dolphin echolocation, particularly by the U.S. and Russian navies. There are obvious military advantages to getting an edge in sonar technology, because since the 1950s, the navy has conscripted dolphins and made strenuous efforts to harness their underwater “superpowers.” To date, Bottlenose Dolphins have served the U.S. in Vietnam, Iraq, Bahrain, Norway, Eastern Europe, and by guarding the Trident nuclear missile base in Bangor, Washington, to cite some known deployments. The U.S. has approximately 75 Bottlenose Dolphin troops; in the past this number has been higher. Officially, the U.S. Navy has always maintained that the dolphins, who are referred to as “Marine Mammal Systems,” were there for nonlethal; purposes, including swimming around with cameras clamped to their heads. But there were rumors of more sinister missions, recounted by disaffected trainers. In 1973, Michael Greenwood, a dolphin expert who claimed to have worked with the CIA in Key West, Florida, alleged to Morely Safer on 60 Minutes that the animals had also been prepared for “swimmer nullification” work, shooting enemy divers with explosive darts and .45 caliber bullets.
“The military’s interest in dolphins is no Disneyland scenario.” – Morley Safer from 60 Minutes
Cetaceans in Captivity
“They lacked basic information, the scientists realized, like the fact that dolphins are voluntary breathers: when they lose consciousness, they die; that when they are taken out of the water and subjected to gravity their organs can be crushed under its own weight; that their skin is more sensitive than a human’s, abrading painfully or even sloughing off if not treated extra-gently.” – Susan Casey
At SeaWorld San Diego, Kandu, a 5,000-pound female Orca from Iceland, slammed into Corky, a 7,000-pound female Orca from Canada, fracturing her jaw and rupturing an artery in the process, causing blood to spurt through her blowhole like a geyser. While thousands of people looked from the bleachers in horror, the tank was filled with blood, and Kandu bled to death. SeaWorld described the incident as a “normal, socially induced act of aggression.”
Scientists from the Humane Society disagreed and said:
“It should be noted that two orcas from different oceans would never have been in such proximity naturally,” they wrote in a report, “nor is there any record of an orca being killed in a similarly violent attack in the wild.”
Often, marine parks tout the captivity of cetaceans as a luxurious setup for them because it saves them the trouble of finding their own food in the increasingly “ruined oceans.”
The list of captive dolphin-on-dolphin injuries and fatalities is impossible to tally, because every marine park contends with this and none are ready to publicize it, but the brutal accounts still come out. For example, tooth raking, jaw clapping, tail lashing, head butting, biting, and high-speed chasing are common behaviors among agitated dolphins. These animals have died from skull fractures after leaping out of their tanks to escape the beatings. In China, a Bottlenose Dolphin’s dorsal fin was amputated after what Dalian Laohutan Ocean Park referred to as “internal strife.” Scientists have puzzled over why Dolphins in captivity swallow objects that have been thrown in their enclosure, even though they are inquisitive about objects. At marine parks, the trainers train dolphins to eat dead fish, but in the ocean, dolphins hunt live prey, and being in captivity confuses the animals, so they start nibbling at anything they encounter. Of course, this is dangerous for dolphins, because intestinal blockages are usually fatal. Pieces of plastic are a common killer for dolphins, but also ingesting bottle caps, coins, car keys, coffee cups, roofing tiles, cigarette lighters, balloons, rubber toys, jewelry, steel wool, nails, and chunks of asphalt.
It's not only captive dolphins who get hurt by captive dolphins, because people are set upon with some regularity. At SeaWorld Orlando’s Dolphin Cove, a Bottlenose Dolphin chomped down on a seven-year-old boy’s hand. One man had his sternum cracked during a dolphin encounter at another facility; in Japan, a woman had her back and ribs broken.
The Sea Beast: The Largest of the Dolphin Family: What Type of Killers Are These?
The Haida people of British Columbia dubbed Killer Whales skana, which translates as “killer demon—supernatural power.”
Image courtesy of Sarai Chinwag, via Pinterest
“As Burich (Samuel Burich) and Bauer (Joe Bauer) chase their victim (Orca calf), two larger whales burst through the water. The vicious killers are doing something unthinkable. They are carefully holding the smaller whale afloat. It’s unconscious, possibly dead. This isn’t an attack; it’s a rescue.” – Mark Leiren-Young, author of The Killer Whale Who Changed the World
Did You Know? Breathe Again
For Orcas, breathing is not an automatic act. An Orca can hold its breath underwater for 15 minutes, which is long enough to escape almost any human who tries to capture them. However, an unconscious Orca won't live long, because when the Orca regains its senses underwater, and tries to gasp for air, it may choke and drown before it reaches the surface. As shock sets in and the Orca unconsciously fades, that means the animal is drawing and dying. A mother Orca in mourning may hold their dead calf above water for days and even transport it for hundreds of miles.
Frank Brocato, and his right-hand fisherman and godson, Frank “Boots” Calandrino commanded the 37-foot boat, Geronimo. Together, the Franks captured two Pilot Whales. “Bubbles,” the first Pilot Whale caught off Santa Catalina Island, in California. The second Pilot Whale was caught to serve as an understudy for the role of “Bubbles,” and this established the tradition that would later be followed by SeaWorld with Shamu. The first “Bubbles” choked to death on a rubber ring less than two years after being on display in Marineland of the Pacific, which was created in 1938, when movie producers set up a tank outside St. Augustine, Florida, to shoot undersea adventure movies. In 1954, the second branch was in Los Angeles, California, and opened in 1954.
No one tried to capture an Orca (Killer Whale) until November 17, 1961, when a lone Killer Whale was spotted in California’s Newport harbor. Based on the size of the dorsal fin, the capture crew from Marineland was certain that the Orca was female. Determined to land the ultimate catch, the Franks and their crew arrived at the harbor on the Geronimo. After several hours chasing the Orca, the crew members realized their lasso wouldn’t work and switched to a 1,200-foot-long, 75-foot-deep nylon net. They easily captured the Orca, but the Killer Whale tore through the net almost immediately and got away. After repairing the net, the crew tried to catch the Orca again. An estimated 8,000 people were standing on the shore as curious on-lookers. The audience on the beach cheered whenever the Orca dodged its would-be captors when one of the hunters fell into the water. After more than eight hours of high stakes “hide and seek,” the Orca was exhausted, and was caught, and its nickname was Wanda. Wanda was placed in a 100 by 50 by 19-foot oval fish tank and she struck her snout when she rammed into the wall. According to the Marineland report, Wanda weighed just under 20,000 pounds and was more than 17-feet long. This was unlikely, since that would make Wanda, the heaviest female Orca ever reported, but she was clearly a big whale. Wanda’s stay at Marineland didn’t last long.
Frank Brocato’s recollection of Wanda’s death was dramatic:
“She started swimming at high speed around the tank, striking her body repeatedly.”
Pathologists from the Los Angeles County Livestock Department performed a necropsy and determined that Wanda had died of acute gastroenteritis and pneumonia. They also found signs of advanced atherosclerosis and concluded that the stress of the capture and confinement probably contributed to her demise. The report also noted that Wanda’s brain weighed 10 pounds and was very highly developed.
After less than 48 hours, the world’s first captive Killer Whale was dead, but catching a Killer Whale no longer seemed impossible. The Franks knew they could catch another Orca, but this time they would find a healthy Killer Whale, ideally a juvenile, a whale that could grow up in captivity, and a whale who could do tricks for profit.
“On their first attempt at killer whale hunting, they almost landed a baby. The Franks spotted a calf, roped it, and were ready to reel in their catch when the other members of the pod turned to face them and lined up side by side in what the hunters believed was a military-style attack formation. Rather than risk being charged by an Orca army, they set their captive free. The next time they were ready. They had the gear to catch a whale—and the weapons to protect themselves. They outfitted the Geronimo for a trip up the Pacific and arrived off the coast of Vancouver in the summer of 1962. Brocato still had his sights set on a juvenile, but just in case an angry mother or killer whale army attacked, he’d packed a ‘high powered cannon.’ Local experts, including Vancouver Aquarium director Dr. Murray Newman, were convinced the whale hunters from Hollywood were risking their lives. Brocato and Calandrino picked Point Roberts, Washington—a small fishing community just on the U.S. side of the border, roughly fifteen nautical miles away from Saturna Island—as their ideal hunting grounds. The whales might not recognize the imaginary line in the water indicating the international boundary, but Canadian officials would, so the Americans were going to catch a killer on their side of the border to avoid becoming entangled in any political nets. On September 16, after two months of searching for their prey, the whalers spotted what they believed was a female killer chasing a porpoise. Brocato told Calandrino to watch the porpoise and treat it like bait. The porpoise saw the boat and decided to treat it like an escape route. As the whales focused on the porpoise, Calandrino easily roped his killer—just like he’d caught dozens of dolphins. But the whale cut underneath the boat, wrapped the 250-foot line around the propeller and then surfaced 200 feet away. ‘As it emitted shrill shrieks a bull orca rose alongside it—both rushed the Geronimo, striking it with their flanks.’ At least that was how the hunters reported the incident. Whether the whales struck the boat or whether they were chasing the porpoise and the waves rocked the boat and spooked the men, the result was the same. Fearing for his life, Brocato took out his .357 Magnum rifle and pumped ten bullets into the female and one into the male. Moments later, the waters off Point Roberts were red with blood. The dead female killer was floating beside them; the male was gone. The great expedition was over. And the killer whale’s reputation as an unpredictable beast, ready and able to destroy anything in its domain, was not only intact but enhanced. The men who caught pilot whales told the world that the killer whales had almost killed them. The Geronimo hauled the female’s corpse back to the American port town of Bellingham, where they weighed and measured their catch, which was reported as twenty-three feet long and more than 35,000 pounds (an extreme size estimate that also seems slightly fishy). Brocato kept the sharp teeth as souvenirs. The whale’s remains became dog food. The most experienced whale wranglers on the planet were finished chasing killers. They were far too dangerous to capture, and they were clearly impossible to exhibit.” - Mark Leiren-Young
In their natural habitat, instead of Orcas attacking other Orcas from other pods, when the southern residents met, both Orca groups performed a ritual that may date as far back to a million years ago. The Orcas approach, posture, pass each other, and even dance. In fact, Orcas party, they mate, and the older females who lead each of the cluster clans and, despite the difference in dialects, appear to discuss things. But what are they discussing? Maybe food? Families? Fertility? Or Orca politics? When Orcas meet like this, the gatherings are called "superpods."
In the wild, the way Orcas work together as a collective to reach a goal where all members of the pod benefit is beyond incredible and intelligent. First off, Orcas can hear each other’s calls from up to 10 miles away. When it comes to hunting, they really are “Wolves of the Sea.” Also, even though humans and Orcas have had a tumultuous domestic violent relationship, but in one situation, Orcas have helped humans greatly.
For example, Orcas have helped humans hunt. In North America and Australia, there are stories of Orcas herding fish, and even other whales to make it easier for fishermen to catch them. In the late 19th century and early 20th century, Orcas near Eden, Australia, would drive Humpback Whales into an area known as Twofold Bay in exchange for their favorite piece of meat, the tongue and lips of Humpback Whales. This working relationship where Orcas worked as whale killers for more than 100 years was referred to by local fishermen as “the law of the tongue.”
According to the Eden Killer Whale Museum:
“In the early years of Eden whaling in the 1840s there were reportedly around 50 killers spread through 3 main pods. All three pods cooperated together. One pod stationed far out to sea would drive whales towards the coast, another pod would attack the whale and another pod would be stationed ahead of the whale in case it broke lose.”
The Killer Whale believed to be the leader was 22 feet, 13,000 pounds, and the whaler named the Orca “Old Tom.” After a Humpback Whale had been trapped, Tom would alert the whalers by slapping his tail and repeatedly breaching (jumping out of the water and landing with a splash) to summon the humans to finish off the kill. There were also stories of fishermen falling into shark-infested waters when their boats were swamped by a Humpback Whale and Tom and the other Orcas from his pod warded the sharks off and saved their “human” partners’ lives.
In 1923, when a local whaler refused to share his catch, Tom got injured in a tug of war that damaged his teeth, and most of his pod stopped herding Humpback Whales, which proves that this wasn’t natural behavior of Orcas. It was a job, and if the Orcas weren’t going to get paid, they wouldn’t show up for work. But Tom, surprisingly, continued to herd larger whales for his love for the taste of whale tongue.
When Orcas hunt other whales, it’s a savage kill, and a nightmare for the unlucky prey, and spectators who are witnesses. Orcas or Killer Whales are the apex predators of the ocean, and this is why they have earned the reputation and title as “Wolves of the Sea.”
Orcas appear to have been roaming and ruling the oceans for roughly six million years.
The Complex Sea Kingdoms of Orcas: Are Orcas More Civilized than Humans?
Throughout history, human groups have found themselves hunting in the same territory as other human groups. Both groups would tend to battle over land and resources. But in Orca culture, which is far more ancient than the culture of humanity, is apparently more civilized than the culture of humans. For instance, Orcas don't just share food, because different Orca pods also share sectors of the seas with each other without resorting to violence. This is true for Orca families found in every ocean on Earth.
In marine parks, Orcas from different pods come from different parts of the world and have sparred for supremacy in the small and cramped quarters of their tanks. Also, Orcas fighting amongst themselves is something they’ve almost never been seen doing in the wild. This means that Orcas in the wild don't hurt each other, even though they are more than capable of doing so.
A Sad Orca Story: Tilikum and his Victims
At SeaWorld Orlando, arguably one of the most terrifying incidents was the death of trainer Dawn Brancheau, during the “Dine with Shamu” show. Brancheau was killed by Tilikum, a 22-foot, 12,000-pound male Orca. As the audience watched in horror from a poolside café and through underwater viewing windows where families had gathered for a “Photo with Shamu.” Tilikum seized Brancheau’s arm in his mouth, pulling her from the deck into the water. Other SeaWorld employees did everything they could to save her, including dropping a net on Tilikum, and raising the bottom of the tank. Tilikum evaded them for 45 minutes, shaking Brancheau, pinning her to the tank floor, breaking her neck and jaw, tearing off part of her scalp, severing her left arm, and ending her life in a way that was hard not to see as intentional.
This wasn’t a freak occurrence, because only two months earlier, at a Canary Islands’ facility called Loro Parque, trainer Alexis Martinez had been bitten, crushed, and drowned by an Orca named Keto.
It’s important to remember there has never been an instance of Orcas fatally attacking humans in the wild.
Brancheau was the third person who Tilikum killed in his tank.
Did You Know? Part II: Humans are not on the Orcas’ Menu
Wild Orcas have never attacked humans in their natural habitat in the ocean, but why? Well, according to Mark Leiren-Young, Orcas tends to sample what their mothers have taught them, when it comes to hunting and eating prey. Since humans don’t live in the ocean, they are not a qualified as a reliable food source for Orcas, and this is why the human species has never been a sample by wild Orcas. Killer Whales don’t just rely on sight, because if a human was to fall in the ocean and was in very close proximity to an Orca. The Orca knows to use echolocation, which they use to lock on their prey. Even if a foolish human decided to disguise themselves as a sea lion, the Orca would know that the prey in front of it is a human and not a sea lion. The Orca wouldn’t eat the human, because humans aren’t a part of the Orcas’ balanced breakfast, lunch, or dinner. A shark, on the other hand, has no restrictions when it comes to prey, because a shark won’t hesitate to bite a surfer, and spit it out, because humans are not as tasty as their usual prey: fish and seals.
During the earliest years as a captive, Tilikum was owned by Sealand of the Pacific, a marine park in Victoria, British Columbia. In 1991, one of his trainers, 22-year-old Keltie Bryne, had slipped while carrying a bucket of fish and fell into his sea pen, and Byrne died in much the same way Brancheau did. Although it is unclear whether Tilikum was solely responsible for her death, because he shared the enclosure with two other Orcas. Tilikum participated. Tilikum was so reluctant to give up Byrne’s body that it took rescuers almost two hours to retrieve her body. After Byrne’s death, Sealand sold Tilikum to SeaWorld, who wanted a male Orca for its captive breeding efforts, and he was moved to Orlando, Florida. Early one morning at his new home, security guards noticed Tilikum swimming around with something flopped across his back; after looking closer, the security guards recognized it was a naked man’s body. The man’s name was Daniel Dukes, and he was 27-years-old and a drifter. He made the ill-advised decision to sneak into Tilikum’s tank for a dip one night after the park was closed. Divers were dispatched to pick up pieces of Duke’s body from the pool, including one of his testicles.
The story of Tilikum and the three people who lost their lives because of the Orca is nothing short of a tragedy. Tilikum is an Icelandic Orca that was stolen from his pod when he was only two-years-old, and he spent 30 years in captivity since then, at Sealand of the Pacific for seven years, and then SeaWorld Orlando for the remainder of his life. At both places, Tilikum was battered so badly by female Orcas that he was often sequestered for his own safety.
In the ocean, Orca society is matriarchal and extremely tight knit. So, in the wild, Tilikum would have spent the rest of his life with his mother. She would have taught him many different and important life
lessons, like teaching him to speak the dialect unique to her pod, one that had been passed down through many generations. He would have swam 80 miles a day in the rich North Atlantic waters and learned to navigate and hunt with an Orca’s masterful skill, because Orcas can take down Grey Whales with ease, and he would have sired calves out there too, mating with females from neighboring pods. Instead, Tilikum was forced to languish in a solitary tank eating dead herring, and he was masturbated by the SeaWorld staff wielding K-Y jelly. His semen was used for the artificial insemination of other captive Orcas. Tilikum was an Orca, but since he was stolen from his natural habitat, he was forced to be everything but what God made him to be: an empty shell swimming endlessly in a small tank.
These incidents were covered in the documentary Blackfish (Blackfish is a group of dolphins, which include short-finned and long-fined Pilot Whales, False Killer Whales, Pygmy Killer Whales, Melon-Headed Whales and Orcas), which followed The Cove documentary. Blackfish opened the eyes of millions to the real cost of keeping cetacean animals in captivity in the most immense concrete tanks imaginable.
On the authority of Susan Casey, instead of dolphins being in captivity doing tricks for human audiences in marine theme parks, as marvels of the ocean, and by all rights dolphins should be in God’s vast oceans, their natural habitat, and not held as captives for entertainment purposes for humans. In fact, dolphins should be doing what 55 million years of evolution has designed them to do, which is to survive and thrive in the ocean.
Orcas and Beluga Whales are popular attractions in marine parks, but their size makes them more difficult to keep; when removed from their natural habitat of the vast oceans in the wild, because both species die at alarming rates. Occasionally, marine parks have also exhibited less familiar species, like the Amazon River Dolphins, Risso's Dolphins, Pilot Whales, White-Sided Dolphins, Melon-Headed Whales, Spinner Dolphins, Fraser's Dolphins, Commerson's Dolphins, Pantropical Spotted Dolphins, Striped Dolphins, Common Dolphins, and False Killer Whales, but unfortunately, none of them last long. History has shown that dolphins of every species, Bottlenose Dolphins included, live fretfully in tanks, and although some individuals adapt better than others, many fall short, and often far short of their natural life expectancies.
For example, female Orcas life expectancy has an average of 50 years, with some individuals living into their 80s, 90s, and beyond. Male Orcas average life expectancy is 30 years, with individuals living into their 50s, 60s, and beyond. According to the World Society for Protection of Animals and the Humane Society of the U.S., they reported that "the overall mortality rate of captive Orcas is at least two and a half times as high as that of wild Orcas and age- and sex-specific annual mortality rates range from two to six times as high."
On the authority of Naomi Rose, PhD, Senior Scientist for the Humane Society, Killer Whales in captivity live into their teens if they are lucky, but if they are really lucky, they live into their 20s, and maybe their 30s if they are amazingly lucky.
In the wild, Beluga Whales have a life expectancy comparable to Orcas'; in captivity, 50 percent of Beluga Whales die by age eight. In the wild, a healthy Bottlenose Dolphin might live 50 or more years; females as old as 45 have given birth. To date, only one captive female Bottlenose Dolphin has lived to 50.
In 2004, the South Florida Sun Sentinel ran an investigative series about captive marine mammals in the U.S. According to the paper:
"Over the past 30 years, according to federal records, more than 3,850 sea lions, seals, dolphins and whales have died while in the 'care' of humans. Of those, about one-fourth perished before the age of 1. Half died by the age of 7."
Marine parks worldwide know all about the damage they do when they partner with companies who specialize in capturing cetaceans. They know when a dolphin or Orca (especially calves) is stolen from their pod, they are robbing that animal of a natural life it was supposed to live in the wild. For example, when an Orca calf is born, it spends its entire young life only a few feet away from its mother, but when they get captured by humans, the calf is not only separated from its mother, but also from its entire family. For the first time, the Orca calf is forced to leave the vast ocean where it was born behind and survive in captivity in a fish tank. The young Orca is now completely alone, and without the wisdom, knowledge, and guidance from its mother and family members. From the capture, cetaceans feel stress, and being confined to a tank with walls compared to the vast ocean, which has no walls is the reason why cetaceans don't live long as captives in marine parks. Although there are some instances where some cetaceans adjust to their captivity better than others, yet many still far short of their natural life expectancies.
It's very narcissistic of humans to believe that taking marine animals, like cetaceans out of their natural habitat of the vast oceans, that are many miles deep, and far from being a tank (i.e., a fishbowl), is “so-called” supposedly a better life for them. Imagine, and put yourself in the captured and captive cetaceans’ situation. What would life be like for you, a lone human stolen from your home, and forced to live 300,000 miles offshore in the ocean with no lifelines available, like no contact with your family and friends, no life jacket, no scuba gear, no food, etc. Think about how difficult it would be, just to survive in the cold waters of the ocean, especially at night with no lights. Knowing you are aware that to survive, you must stay afloat at the surface, or you would drown and die. Also, the never-ending anxiety of not knowing what marine animal is lurking underneath that could easily eat you alive at any second.
Dolphins: The Compassionate and Selfless Carnivores of the Sea
In the book Beautiful Minds, Biologist Maddalena Bearzi recalls tailing a pod of Bottlenose Dolphins one grim, foggy morning along the coast of Los Angeles, California. The animals were hunting, ignoring her research boat as they searched for fish. Finally, they found a huge school of sardines and began herding them. If there’s anything that commands a dolphin’s attention, it is a mother lode of fish, so Bearzi was surprised when one of the dolphin’s suddenly broke away from feeding and headed out to sea, swimming top speed. The rest of the pod followed, so did Bearzi and her crew. The dolphins arrowed about three miles offshore and they stopped, arranging themselves in a circle. In the center, the scientists were shocked to see a girl’s body floating. She was a teenager and barley alive, her suicide attempt only moments away from succeeding. Around her neck, the girl had strung a plastic bag containing her identification and a farewell letter.
“I still think and dream about that day, and that tiny, pale girl lost in the ocean and found again for some inexplicable reason, by us, by the dolphins.” - Maddalena Bearzi, author of Beautiful Minds
Thanks to the dolphins, the young teenage girl was rescued.
The Most Loyal Animal on the Planet: Pelorus Jack
A Risso Dolphin, Pelorus Jack had spent 24 years, from 1888 to 1912, escorting ships through New Zealand’s Cook Strait, a tricky slice of sea between the North and South Islands. He was a handsome animal, about 14 feet long and colored mottled silver, darker at the tips of his fins. As he got older, he turned white and his countless scrapes and scratches and scuffs stood out in relief, as though he had been the target of graffiti. Like all Risso Dolphins, Pelorus Jack had a large round head and a tiny snip of a beak, giving him a wry, brainy appearance.
These waters contain every possible treachery, like rough waters, submerged rocks, whipping winds, and a fierce current known as Te-Aumiti—Swirling Vortex—by the Maoris. Before the dolphin stepped in, the Cook Strait had hosted a number of New Zealand’s worst maritime disasters. Pelorus Jack’s job, as he performed it, was to guide boats to a safe crossing. Usually, he would just materialize at the bow; if he didn’t immediately show up, captains would often stall their vessels and wait for Pelorus Jack. For his navigational expertise and the joyful way, he expressed himself, by jumping across bow waves and rubbing against the ships’ hulls. The dolphin was beloved.
“He swam alongside in a kind of snuggling-up attitude.” – One Seaman Recalled
During his tenure, Pelorus Jack’s reputation spread far and wide. Tourists flocked to see him. Songs were even written about him. Rudyard Kipling and Mark Twain, both watched him in action, and sometimes he appeared in gossip columns.
When a passenger aboard a local ferry, the Penguin, he shot Pelorus Jack with a rifle, grazing him and causing him to disappear for weeks, the New Zealand government passed a law to protect him. After the gunshot wound healed, Pelorus Jack returned to his post. But numerous witnesses claim he never guided the Penguin again, for obvious reasons, because if he happened to see Penguin ferry he would dive immediately and vanish. In a twist of history that might be described as karmic justice, three years after the incident, the Penguin hit a rock and sank.
Susan Casey’s Encounter with Spinner Dolphins in Honolua Bay, Maui, Hawaii
“As I headed across the mouth of the bay I veered slightly south, out to sea, until I was a half mile offshore. Treading water, I cleared my goggles and looked around. I could faintly see the bottom, unperturbed and sandy, and conditions were smoother out here, so I didn’t turn back. I kept swimming. Some people crave illicit substances when upset; my drug of choice is saltwater. The ocean’s vast blue country was either peace or oblivion, I wasn’t sure which, but both of those possibilities worked for me.
I was about to head back when a movement caught my eye: a large, shadowy body passed diagonally below me. Then, a jutting dorsal fin; beside it something white flashed. Streaks of sunlight had filtered through the clouds and suddenly the water was illuminated. My adrenaline surged as the creatures revealed themselves.
It was a pod of spinner dolphins, forty or fifty animals, swimming towards me. They materialized from the ocean like ghosts, shimmering in the ether. One moment they were hazily visible, then they were gone, then they reappeared on all sides, surrounding me. I had never been this close to dolphins before, and I was amazed by their appearance.
One of the bigger spinners approached slowly, watching me. For a moment we hung there in the water and looked at one another, exchanging what I can only describe as a profound, cross-species greeting. His eyes were banded subtly with black, markings that trailed to his pectoral fins like an especially delicate bank robber’s mask. I wondered if he was the pod’s guardian, if the others followed his lead. The dolphins were travelling in small but distinct clusters—couples, threesomes, klatches of four or five—and within those little groups they maintained close body contact. I saw fins touching like handholding, bellies brushing across backs, heads tilted towards other heads, beaks slipped under flukes. The entire group could have darted away in an instant, but they chose instead to stay with me. Spinners are known for their athletics, rocketing out the water in aerial leaps whenever the urge strikes, but these dolphins were relaxed. They showed no fear, despite the presence of several baby spinners tucked beside their mothers, replicas the size of bowling pins. The dolphins had simply enfolded me in their gathering, and I could hear their clicks and buzzes underwater, their cryptic aquatic conversation.
I dove ten feet down and the big dolphin appeared beside me again, even closer. He had coloration like a penguin’s, dark on top and tuxedo white on his belly, with a long, slender beak. At eight feet long he was a powerful animal, but nothing in his body language suggested hostility. We stayed together for maybe ten minutes but the meeting felt eternal, as though time were suspended in the water with us. The ocean rose and fell rhythmically, almost hypnotically, but I had no point of reference, no horizon. There was no land, no sky. Everything glowed, as if views through a lush blue prism. The dolphins watched me watching them. They moved with an unearthly grace, as though they were more presence than form. I swam with the spinners until they headed into deeper waters, where the light fell off to nowhere in long, slanting rays. The last thing I saw before they vanished back to their world was their tails, moving in unison.”
- Susan Casey, author of Voices in the Ocean: A Journey into the Wild and Haunting World of Dolphins
Over the centuries, dolphins and whales sent knowledge to human beings via dreams. “The whales told us all about God. The dolphins told us about wisdom and art and other forms of creativity. We black people believe that dolphins are not fish. They are amafingeeto, or saviors. They have kingdoms under the sea. They have stories they tell their children. They have hopes for the future. The killing of these holy creatures must stop.”
– Spiritual Leader Credo Mutwa
Oceana: Protecting the World’s Oceans
Oceana is the largest international advocacy organization dedicated solely to ocean conservation. The ocean connects us all and covers two-thirds of our blue planet. Oceans face many threats, from overfishing, habitat destruction, oil and plastic pollution, and the killing or threatened species like dolphins, turtles, sharks, whales, etc.
Oceana has already protected nearly 4 million square miles of ocean and sea creatures. If you would like to help protect the oceans, marine life and habitats of planet Earth, donate to Oceana by clicking here: Oceana
Image courtesy of Oceana
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IMDb. Blackfish. IMDb. 2013. Sept. 26, 2025. https://m.imdb.com/title/tt2545118/
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metaphysicslab.xyz. Dolphin Spirit Animal image. metaphysicslab.xyz. Pinterest. Sept. 2, 2025. https://www.pinterest.com/pin/AV7wugcs0PjqNEExGz7TX07SGSmtRks_NmARS5q6G8mK6wiW9UE0jRk/
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Yuchao. 1/2/3pcs Vibrant Dolphin & Heart-Shaped Rose PVC Iron On Patches, Durable Plastic, Washable And Easy To Iron, Suitable For DIY T-Shirts, Sweatshirts, Jeans, Backpacks, Handbags, Pillows, Retro Baseball Caps Appliques - Holiday Decor Stickers. Pinterest. Shein. Sept. 3, 2025. https://www.pinterest.com/pin/AXBsOmiDFWrvFP14z2ai7jLw20hhBVcfeSB__No8mxje0aasOOJw2Qxd-glN0RdFHfbNLlP7GncI_fHhzVKGP_I/
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