MORE THAN JUST KILLERS
- Taylor
- Apr 27, 2017
- 3 min read
So here we are… discussing how amazingly interesting orcas are... again.
----- Excerpt from our last post.
One of the many interesting things about orcas that make the species so intriguing is the whales’ brain. Their brains can weigh up to 15 pounds and even extends further than a human’s brain, holding an extra lobe that researchers have found to be adjacent to the orcas’ emotions.
However, what is even more fascinating about the orcas’ brains is their ability to learn and develop languages. Orca language consists of whistles, clicks and calls that each orca can use to communicate with one another.
BE O-WARE OF & O-PPRECIATE... the fact that these whales not only have larger brains then we do but that researchers have found that their brains possess emotions the human brain cannot even began to imagine. Let me repeat...
...researchers have found that their brains possess emotions the human brain cannot even began to imagine.
Both in the wild and in captivity, killer whales exhibit emotional ranges of joy, frustration and anger- to just name a few.
The extra, enlarged emotion based limbic lobe researchers have found to be able to process emotional expression, social organization, empathy and even self-recognition.
Because these orcas are so emotionally developed, researchers, and animal activist alike, are concerned in the stimulation of the whales’ brains, in captivity especially.
Blackfish is just one example of researchers and animal activists coming together to prove that orcas' emotional state of frustration, for example, is causing harm to trainers. The film directs its own frustration with the animal theme park, SeaWorld. The film goes into a psychological breakdown of Tilikum (a killer whale) and his history after being captured. The film explains the emotional state of the orca's life that may have caused Dawn Brancheau (Tilikum's trainer) her own life.
Here's SeaWorld's rebuttal.
Most of the time when we think of highly emotional animals we think—elephants that cry after the death of a family member then travel back to that exact spot every year for remembrance. However, we need to start including killer whales among this group as researchers have found that due to the limbic lobe- killer whales are more self-aware just like their elephant friends. Self-awareness is a highly developed notion the brain may or may not exhibit depending on how emotions are carried throughout the brain.
“In the simplest test (Self-recognition}, animals’ faces or heads are marked, and their reaction to their reflection in a mirror subsequently observed. Our brilliant and wonderful domestic dogs do not pass this test, but the great apes, the elephants and the dolphins do.”
In the wild, researchers can see how these emotions are directed in pod's patterns of hunting by using strategic team work and only hunting for necessary food not for fun. Another example of how orca's emotions come into play is the close bond of young calves with their mothers. Most young never leave their mother's pod, ever. Many pods stretch multiple generations.
Also emotions can be seen with how individuals may react to trauma or death among the pod. There is even an example of a healthy adult male killer whale (in the wild) stopped eating immediately and ultimately died after his mother died.
These whales are more than just killers, they are highly intelligent and comprehensible beings with emotions deeper than the ocean they swim in and deeper than the human mind can take us.
DID U KNOW? Because their breathing is not automatic, only one hemisphere of the whales brain goes to sleep at a time, the other half stays awake, with one eye open, to take in a breath every 5 minutes or so.
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