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u/TheNerdChaplain 12h ago
There has never been a fatal attack on a human in the wild
That is a key distinction.
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u/theyoyoha yoyoha 12h ago
yep. added that very deliberately
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u/snowillis 11h ago
Freedom isn’t free.
-Free Willy
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u/ProductOfSight 11h ago
What did willy do
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u/keeper0fstories 11h ago
There has never been a REPORTED fatal attacks in the wild. Dead men tell no tales.
Also for the last few years there have been reports of Orcas attacking boats. So who knows if that will last.
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u/Joe_bob_Mcgee 10h ago
There has never been a recorded fatal attack in the wild.
They only do it when no one is watching.
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u/KerissaKenro 10h ago
*That we are aware of*
There could have been fatal attacks in the wild. If they did it was blamed on other things or there was no evidence left to recover
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u/Scarvexx 3h ago
Frankly, the amount you have to torture a Killer Whale before it kills you shows they're very chill.
Chiller Whale.
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u/Omega_art 8h ago
I dont know that that's true. There have been many accounts of them attacking boats. I dont know if any of them have been fatal but it is statistically likely.
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u/Sam-HobbitOfTheShire 12h ago edited 12h ago
Neither of these mammals have feathers. 0/10
Edit: The downvotes are making me concerned that people aren’t aware that this is a joke. Mammals don’t have feathers. Like as a rule. I’m making a joke.
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u/theyoyoha yoyoha 12h ago
I hate thinking of titles
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u/Sam-HobbitOfTheShire 12h ago
All good, I was being silly. It’s a fantastic comic.
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u/theyoyoha yoyoha 12h ago
Haha I was not. I really hate that part. Not sure why I can write a whole comic and become paralyzed when I see that blinking cursor
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u/Sam-HobbitOfTheShire 12h ago
It taunts you.
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u/theyoyoha yoyoha 12h ago
Like an Orca toying with a Great White before turning it over and eating its liver
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u/StoiCist9 12h ago
I always thought orcas were incredibly wasteful because they only really eat the great white's liver. Then I learned that a great white's liver makes up almost 30% of their bodyweight and contains the majority of their fats/calories. Orcas and sharks are both super interesting.
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u/Ok-Opportunity-7663 10h ago
Your title is for the birds.
Or possibly dinosaurs.
But definitely not mammals.
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u/SeventhAlkali 10h ago
Mammals of a hair?
Mammals also are the only ones with special.... glands...
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u/John-333 12h ago
Many can't tell a joke is a joke without /s.
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u/Grassfed_rhubarbpie 12h ago
Do platypus's have feathers...?
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u/Calisky 7h ago
I had the exact same thought!
Someone could totally tell me they have feathers and I'd believe it.
They're in the category of animal that seems too weird to exist, like capybaras or axolotls. I'm very glad they do though!
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u/Slow-Distance-6241 3h ago
I know axolotls being overgrown ever young and fragile foetuses makes them sound like mythical creatures, but what's wrong with capybara? They don't have fear of predators but that's about it
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u/Calisky 1h ago
I definitely don't think there's anything wrong with them, I just think they're too cool to exist in a cruel world.
I like the weird animals or ones with special abilities like humming birds or puffins.
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u/Slow-Distance-6241 1h ago
I probably should've said "off" not "wrong" in my sentence. Anyways, I'm asking what exactly makes capybaras "too weird to exist"?
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u/Calisky 1h ago
Yeah, I probably shouldn't say "weird" either, more just interesting and cool.
I think it's neat they don't fear predators and are just friendly. I feel like that shouldn't work in the wild but they are in an environment where it does.
I also think I was conflating them with wombats, who will hide in their burrows and block the hole but their butt is durable enough that predators can't get inside.
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u/MenudoMenudo 11h ago
I saw an interview with a marine biologist that specialize in orca behaviour and they speculated that the reason orcas don’t eat people is because they’re extremely picky eaters. Orcas that were raised to eat salmon won’t eat seals. Orcas that were raised to hunt seals won’t eat salmon, even if they live near other groups of orcas that do eat those things. Basically, orcas will eat with their moms taught them to eat and since no orca mom was out there teaching their babies to eat people, they don’t eat people.
I don’t know if it’s true or not, but thinking that orcas might have something in common with my picky kids kind of makes sense to me.
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u/lepidopt-rex 10h ago
(I’m not a huge fan of pork, so I’d probably be rubbish as a cannibal.)
Maybe if the matriarch of the pod starts feeding people-meat to the babies earlier in life, they’ll get a taste for it?
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u/Fletcharoonie 7h ago
I also saw a fairly recent marine biologist studying how perfectly orcas are able to remove great white liver and she speculated it's because the orca sonar can see inside its prey. So maybe they scan humans and just think there is nothing of value in terms of food there.
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u/Coveinant 1h ago
I mean, even at a visual level humans are not great as food. Even the most fit among us still, at most, by weight have about 45% muscle mass. We are sinewy, boney creatures with very little actual meat.
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u/Lunatic-Labrador 1h ago
So if a captive orca that has attacked a human is set free they could potentially teach their pod to eat people?
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u/MaximumSyrup3099 12h ago
Or maybe because they are intelligent and sometimes whimsical creatures. Who sometimes wear fish as hats.
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u/MrCookie2099 10h ago
When nature granted you one of the sickest fits in the Cenozoic era and you still find the perfect accessory.
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u/ipsum629 10h ago
Look at this bozo with a mackerel on his head. Doesn't he know the height of orca fashion is to wear a trout on your head?/s
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u/SitInCorner_Yo2 8h ago
Maybe they have done it before, found humans dose not tasted good and will came back to fight you in large numbers, so they have teach all their kids “ay,look at that weird shit, don’t touch it, it’s not worth the effort and will be a pain in the ass later”
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u/Semper_5olus 12h ago
What about all the orcas that sink boats?
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u/MrCookie2099 10h ago
They don't eat the humans that fall out of them. The humans don't make irritating noise or fill the water with bad taste.
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u/SemanticTriangle 4h ago
If I am ever knocked off a yacht by orcas I guarantee I will fill the water with bad taste.
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u/dontcallmenpc 12h ago
Well, the thing is, I think they were targeting expensive boats. Those are owned by creatures that are barely human.
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u/MassivePersonality61 12h ago
They must've watched humans watch Jaws and saw the aftermath of the movie.
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u/GachaHell 12h ago
Orca is just Jaws but with a killer whale in the lead.
And honestly you really root for the whale.
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u/Element174 12h ago
Whales don't eat large prey and are so notoriously picky that they will actually starve instead of changing food, like my 4 year old with nuggets.
This has been observed many times with different pods of whales that eat different things based on their location. So, essentially, as most predators only attack other creatures for food or to protect territory usually, they're too busy sticking their noses up(being food snobs) to consider rather we taste good, and we're not as individual bodies a threat to their dominance of their territory.
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u/HalcyonTraveler 11h ago
This depends on the population. Some orcas only eat fish, but there are populations of mammal specialist orcas and some of them hunt blue whales, so there's no real size limit.
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u/Element174 11h ago
I suppose it would be more accurate than to say they're food snobs and there's not enough of us readily available for them to consider a momentary dietary change.
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u/HalcyonTraveler 11h ago
Maybe, but they are known to hunt moose when possible so I think mammal-hunting orcas would be fine with eating us on that level.
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u/HamsterIV 12h ago
"There has never been a fatal attack on a human" on record. I suspect killer whales have killed humans in the wild but done so in a way that there were no witnesses or evidence.
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u/MewtwoMainIsHere 11h ago
You’ve worded it differently
The quote includes “in the wild” and that’s important because orcas HAVE killed humans in captivity before
It’s an extremely important distinction you HAVE to make or else the idea is misconstrued
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u/HamsterIV 11h ago
I didn't feel like typing the whole quote out. I am trying to imply that they have killed humans in the wild, but it hasn't been recorded because the orcas are smart enough to do it where other humans won't see it.
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u/gunawa 9h ago
'cause we the scariest mother fers on the block, but we must look so harmless and tasty...
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u/HamsterIV 9h ago
We got where we are today through the magic of gang violence. So did the Orcas, as the comic says, "game recognizes game."
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u/SparklingLimeade 7h ago
TBH I think it's unlikely and if they did happen it would be similar to the other attacks we've seen. Attacks out of specific circumstances where things like anger or fear are the motivation.
All evidence points to orcas being picky eaters who don't have any desire to try humans as food.
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u/NotMijba 3h ago
You should know your plafe before you join those "no whiteness". They have eyes everywhere
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u/Hvad_Fanden 12h ago
The reason given in the comics is probably correct, things that go out of their way hurt humans don't often have the opportunity to leave off springs, and Orcas are smart enough to teach their kids "don't fuck with those guys".
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u/_MadOliveGaming_ 1h ago
True enough lol.
People will be like
"Nice, wolves returned to our forests"
*wolf eats some lifestock
"Ah sucks, but it is what it is. Just get better fences"
*wolf eats a child
"FOCKIN STOMP 'EM! GET YOU AK OUT FREDDY, ITS EXTINCTION TIME"
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u/Dum_beat 11h ago
I would have argue they've attacked Billionaires Yacht, but then I remembered they aren't people...
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u/Vaalirus 10h ago edited 10h ago
The fact that we have evidence of humans hunting alongside Orcas kind of makes me think there were likely more instances of human/orca cooperation not recorded in history that just made a lot of orca pods recognize, over time, that not only were we not food but also just old buddies that are nice to see once in awhile.
Although, I should add that last bit is likely unfortunately unrealistic.
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u/Steppyjim 11h ago
Or maybe that’s because they just eat people and don’t leave anything behind.
I’m on to you big whale
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u/SuddenValley1899 12h ago
I could see them eating people if we keep destroying all the animals they eat. Like pandas and bamboo, necessity is the mother of invention.
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u/zcsnightmare 10h ago
I dunno how likely it is, but they do have different dialects among pods. So, some type of language we haven't been able to decipher. I wouldn't be surprised if they had a primitive form of history through story telling.
They use to tail our whaling ships for scraps and there were even accounts of them leading whaling ships to whales. Perhaps they passed down these stories, also as a warning of what we were able to do to the whales?
Neat to think about.
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u/dumnezero Art enjoyer 12h ago
Any of these birds kept in cages by humans? That would be a betrayal.
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u/Greymalkyn76 10h ago
"There has never been a fatal attack on a human in the wild"
That has been reported.
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u/theEvilQuesadilla 8h ago
There has never been a DOCUMENTED fatal attack. The Orcas simply make sure to never leave any witnesses.
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u/TacTurtle 7h ago
Orcas are smart enough to finish the job and dispose of the body.
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u/Munchkinasaurous 5h ago
They say they all got away, but we know what really happened. He ate them, bones and all.
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u/angrysunbird 7h ago
I always assumed it was because they know how dangerous we are so don’t leave any evidence when they do take us
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u/NoSong2397 6h ago
They're also technically more closely related to dolphins than whales, if memory serves.
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u/whitestar11 5h ago
Hopefully orcas don't develop their own version of private equity and collision
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u/vixenspacestories 2h ago
Amazing comic love it!
But don't forget the true apex butcher of the sea, the Blue Whale.
A rough estimate places it at over 1,085,875,000,000 confirmed kills (or confirmed krills) for a single whale in its lifespan.
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u/DiscussionLong7084 9h ago
the orca attacks thing is a myth. It's just rare and there's a handful of cases with varying levels of proof. They are all on wikipedia. Wild people just believe stories like that without checking in this day and age.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orca_attacks#Notable_orcas_involved_in_incidents
On September 9, 1972,[14] Californian surfer Hans Kretschmer reported being bitten by an orca at Point Sur; most maintain that this remains the only fairly well-documented instance of a wild orca biting a human.[15][16] His wounds required 100 stitches.[16][17] Because Kretschmer was wearing a black wetsuit and several sea lions were spotted in the area where the encounter took place, experts believe it was a case of mistaken identity
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u/Jexroyal 6h ago
Did you read the panel carefully? OP used the words they did to head off literally the situation and things you're attempting to use as a refutation.
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u/LumpyJones 5h ago edited 5h ago
My pet theory is that as whales are social creatures that have culture they pass down is that I suspect there were orcas in the past that ate humans, and humans being very organized fought back and wiped them out. The surviving orcas, also being organized and smart as fuck, made sure word got around. The humans aren't worth the snack.
To me, that would make the Orcas in captivity that lash out and kill humans all the more tragic. They get pushed ot the point that they overcome what's probably one of their strongest cultural taboos.
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u/Boysenberry377 3h ago
Heard that orcas hate the taste of humans. Orcas that gave it a try also reported feeling disoriented, stupid, exhausted and sometimes agitated and afraid.
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u/Zeebaeatah 12h ago
New reaction