Why Orcas Are the Ocean's Deadliest Hunters

Episode 13  ·  How orcas hunt as a team: sharks, seals, whale calves, and what scientists can and cannot say about their plans  ·  all sources

Orcas take on animals far bigger and faster than themselves. This film follows how different orca families hunt: quietly when their prey can hear them, by rolling great white sharks upside down, by washing seals off the ice with waves, and by separating a whale calf from its mother and from the air it needs. It also looks at the hunts that fail, and at what scientists can and cannot say about planning and learning.

This is a fully animated film. Every visual was drawn for ColdProvenance; no footage, photographs or recordings are used. Narration is a synthesized voice. The music and sound effects were created for this film. Every factual claim is sourced below.

Sources

• Different orca populations eat different food, and hunting techniques are learned within social groups: NOAA Fisheries — Killer whale species profile
• Mammal-eating killer whales call less while hunting prey that can hear them: Deecke, Ford and Slater (2005), The vocal behaviour of mammal-eating killer whales: communicating with costly calls, Animal Behaviour
• Orcas in the Gulf of California filmed flipping young great white sharks onto their backs (2020 and 2022) and eating the liver; Port and Starboard taking shark livers off South Africa: Smithsonian, CBS News and NBC News
• Pack-ice killer whales in Antarctica washing seals off ice floes with waves, often in repeated attacks: Pitman and Durban (2012), Cooperative hunting behavior, prey selectivity and prey handling by pack ice killer whales, Marine Mammal Science; researchers' illustrated account: Pitman and Durban (2009)
• An orca striking a harbour seal about 80 feet into the air near Victoria, Canada, in October 2015: HuffPost Canada and Fox 13. The height is an estimate, and the reason is not known.
• One orca holding a dead sunfish by its fin while another rams it, filmed twice in the Gulf of California: Frontiers and Popular Science. The purpose is not known.
• The attack on a gray whale calf off California on 23 April 2021: the last 90 minutes watched, the mother's attempts to hold her calf at the surface, the calf's drowning, and what individual orcas did: California Killer Whale Project, Encounter 17 (Alisa Schulman-Janiger)
• Humpback mothers off Western Australia using shallow water near reefs, escorts helping to defend calves, and attacks that succeeded and failed: Pitman et al. (2015), Whale killers: prevalence and ecological implications of killer whale predation on humpback whale calves off Western Australia, Marine Mammal Science
• Telling individual orcas apart from photographs, and recording who hunts and who feeds: Matkin et al. (2011), Predation by killer whales in Cook Inlet and western Alaska, NOAA research report

Visuals

• All animation, animals, maps and diagrams were created by ColdProvenance for this film. No footage or photographs appear in this film.
• The opening scene and the final "two paths" scene show tactics described in the sources; they are not a reconstruction of one particular attack. The 2021 California attack and the Western Australia photographs are illustrated from the written reports, with animal positions simplified.
• Path lines, rings and markers are explanatory drawings. Animal lengths follow typical adult and calf sizes.

Audio

• Narration: synthesized voice.
• Music, ambience and sound effects: created for this film. No stock music, sound libraries or field recordings are used.