Great White Sharks Are Terrified of Orcas

Re:Great White Sharks Are Terrified of Orcas by Tistel on Saturday December 07, 2019 @09:57AM (#21730560)

i waste too much time on YouTube. But there is another video of a snorkel diver lady who swears a whale (forget which species) protected her from a shark. It would be nice to think there is some mammal bro behaviour (flipper <-> Hand fist bump!) but evolution has altered our morphology so much I doubt they see us as distant relatives. It took humans ages to see the evolutionary connection from us to everything else. I know a lot of animal hunt mainly on smell. Maybe we smell related. Or taste bad. Or maybe they just find us sufficiently amusing not to merc us.

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Re:Great White Sharks Are Terrified of Orcas by 52-6F-62 on Saturday December 07, 2019 @10:27AM (#21730731)

I haven’t been lucky enough to encounter them but there are entire bays in Hawaii where only whale sharks will regularly go. Tiger and bull sharks will stay well away most of the time because of the dolphins and dolphins love people.

I like to think that they think we’re all just loveable fools à la Douglas Adams.

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Re:Great White Sharks Are Terrified of Orcas by tekkk on Saturday December 07, 2019 @10:36AM (#21730773)

Aren't seals mammals? And in captivity, killer whales have a killed a few humans, dunno the total count. So I guess they just don't find humans that appetizing in the wild, or just haven't had the chance to try them out. I'm not sure how common it's for humans to swim in the same waters as killer whales. And isn't it quite rare for sharks to attack humans too?

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Re:Great White Sharks Are Terrified of Orcas by puranjay on Saturday December 07, 2019 @12:57PM (#21731573)

The captivity killings can be explained by the psychosis brought about by keeping an intelligent, social animal in isolation inside a pool

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Re:Great White Sharks Are Terrified of Orcas by ceejayoz on Saturday December 07, 2019 @01:32PM (#21731774)

And revenge for mistreatment, potentially.

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Re:Great White Sharks Are Terrified of Orcas by Semiapies on Saturday December 07, 2019 @10:58AM (#21730901)

I wonder if it's a matter of looking at humans and going, "Wow, that weird little critter has such a hard time moving around." and some protective instinct for injured or sick pod members kicking in.

Or maybe we're just ugly-cute to them.

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Re:Great White Sharks Are Terrified of Orcas by kevingadd on Saturday December 07, 2019 @12:05PM (#21731272)

I would assume it overlaps with whatever instinct or learned behavior inspires them to kill sharks - if you're not going to kill a shark directly, why not deprive it of a meal?

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Re:Great White Sharks Are Terrified of Orcas by bcrosby95 on Saturday December 07, 2019 @01:03PM (#21731607)

All sorts of dangerous-to-humans animals are mammals too. I think you're seeing a connection where there isn't one.

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Re:Great White Sharks Are Terrified of Orcas by nkrisc on Saturday December 07, 2019 @03:42PM (#21732424)

In fact many of the animals that could or have actively preyed on humans are mammals: large felines, and to a lesser extent, canines. Reptiles probably take second place though thanks to crocs.

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Re:Great White Sharks Are Terrified of Orcas by mixmastamyk on Saturday December 07, 2019 @02:21PM (#21732022)

From the article it appears orcas are aggressive towards sharks in the area since they are competitors. Likely more territorial than “let me protect this weird water monkey.”

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Re:Great White Sharks Are Terrified of Orcas by koonsolo on Saturday December 07, 2019 @02:00PM (#21731914)

> mammal bro behaviour

You might be onto something here. Dolphins look cute, and orca's don't look like the killers they really are. Sharks on the other hand look scary. So it works the other way around.

But they do eat seals, which are probably closer related to them than us?

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Re:Great White Sharks Are Terrified of Orcas by stjohnswarts on Saturday December 07, 2019 @06:13PM (#21733261)

Humans really tend to anthropomorphize animals but it's about 99% more likely that the orca didn't want the great white in its hunting grounds or near its pod's younglings.

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