the FRIENDLY killers
Killer whales, or orcas - from the Latin for 'lower world' - were named to
reflect their renowned predatory nature. So why in New Zealand do so many
divers report close and seemingly safe encounters with these creatures?
Wade Doak investigates
While concentrating on the viewing prism of his Hasselblad camera, veteran
photographer Warren Farrelly heard a weird sound.
He had just taken a shot of a paddle crab amid vivid jewel anemones, and
was waiting for the camera's twin strobe lights to recharge, with their
shrill electronic whirr. But the sound he heard seemed to come from
elsewhere.
Was it his ears squealing because he had not equalised properly? He
continued taking pictures until his film ran out.
Then he began to worry about the sound. It rose as the strobes recharged
and reduced as they reached full power. It seemed to mimic the sound
pattern his strobes were making, but where was it coming from? Slowly, he
realised it was behind him.
On turning round, he came face to face with four enormous, motionless
orcas. "The middle pair were close enough to touch. I just stared."
After a few moments, they departed. Possibly they had become bored without
the sound of the recharging flashes to mimic. As they left, Farrelly
noticed that they didn't seem to disturb the water in the least, something
others have also remarked on.
"I left the water feeling incredibly clumsy but touched by magic," he
said.
This is just one of an extraordinary sequence of curious encounters
between orcas and divers in the waters off New Zealand.
Several episodes of friendly interaction between orcas and boats have been
reported. There was the female orca who rested her head on a stern
platform to be stroked, and the film-maker who obtained footage of three
orcas headstanding in the shallows. And in separate incidents divers have
entered the water to release orcas that have become enmeshed in nets. But
the in-water encounters would almost be beyond belief - had they not
occurred on several separate occasions.
On one occasion Peter O'Donnel was completing a day's lobster diving. As
he surfaced, he called to his friend, dozing in the boat about 150m away.
Just then his foot hit something solid. He knew that the reef was too deep
for it to be rock.
"I hesitated to look," he said. "Whatever it was took hold of my flipper.
I peered down. A great black-and-white thing was hovering there, vertical
in the water, stock still. No sound or bubbles. I couldn't believe my
eyes. After about 10 seconds it just opened its mouth, slipped back and
vanished in the murk."
He hovered in the water as the orca started swimming towards him, coming
at him from different angles, gliding by at touching distance. Next it
repeatedly reared up out of the water alongside him, arching over. "By the
time my boat reached me I had been with the orca for about eight minutes.
I had given up on life," he confessed. "I just knew it was going to eat
me.
"Thinking it over afterwards, I had a strong feeling that something really
alien - this incredibly strong mind - was trying to communicate with me,
and I'm fairly sure now that it wouldn't have hurt me."
Jim Skenars and Thelma Wilson were scuba diving off New Plymouth, North
Island when a 4m orca began circling them less than a metre away. It
seemed to be inspecting them, one at a time.
"It gave the impression of curiosity, not at all threatening," said
Skenars. "Thelma was able to run her hand down its side during one pass."
Todd Sylvester was working as a biologist at Leigh Marine Laboratory when
he surfaced after a dive to find an orca about 5m long, 9m away. To be on
the safe side he dived to the bottom, seeking cover.
As he looked over his shoulder, however, he saw that the orca had followed
him down. "Thinking it was just a chance encounter, with me going in one
direction and the orca in another, I swam faster, but to my horror the
orca followed me.
"Things got infinitely worse when the orca opened its huge mouth - rows of
white teeth greeted me, just centimetres from my flippers. The orca then
sped up and put its mouth around my right foot, ankle and flipper, but at
no stage did it close its mouth and bite me."
Sylvester managed to pull his foot out of the beast's cavernous mouth, but
the orca swam forward and this time engulfed his left foot with its mouth,
but still didn't bite. "As well as pulling my leg out from its jaws (I was
swimming on my back), I 'kicked' the orca off with my other foot.
"I was pretty agitated, but not actually panicking. Part of me thought I
was going to become whale-fodder, the other part hoped the orca was just
playing with me."
Each time Sylvester kicked the whale off, it returned to repeat its little
game, at no time biting the foot. After about the sixth "mouthing"
Sylvester had had enough. He dived quickly to the bottom and didn't see
the orca again.
Several of these amazing accounts were published in a New Zealand diving
magazine. It was hoped that the next diver to meet a friendly orca would
be less frightened and perhaps respond in a more positive manner.
Gary Longley and two companions sighted eight orcas out from Tauranga.
When a male-female pair acted inquisitively, Longley thought of the
article and decided to enter the water.
One of the pair glided below him, then tilted a little and stared up. It
circled twice, before hanging suspended less than a metre away, looking at
him. Then, as had happened to previous divers, it took the end of his fin
in its mouth. "I recalled the magazine accounts and I felt less afraid,"
said Longley. Twice more it gently mouthed his fin, with no attempt to
bite him, before the pair swam off.
Encouraged by this safe outcome, Longley returned to the boat for a thawed
bait fish.
"Lifting my head above water, I saw a big fin coming towards me. Silently
the two orcas cruised by, eyeing me closely. On the next pass, I waved the
fish at them. Slowly one approached and mouthed it very gently, its
massive teeth only centimetres from my slightly trembling hand."
The baitfish was rejected as the orcas swam away without taking it. They
came back however, again passing just as close, and nudging at the fish.
"Everything went dark, as the beast gracefully swam within an arm's
length," remembers Longley. "There was no turbulence, as I would have
expected. Yet it was enormous."
After several circuits, the orca pair continued on their eastward journey,
ending the 10-minute encounter.
Nobody really knows why the New Zealand orcas seem keen to make contact in
this way. Are they offering us a gesture of trust, in the way that dogs
and dolphins will mouth a human hand? Have we been underestimating the
intelligence of these large and fascinating creatures?
According to brain scientist Dr Peter Morgane of the Worcester Foundation
for Experimental Biology in Mass-achusetts: "All the neurological evidence
is not in yet, regarding the whale brain and intelligence. However, enough
is known to lead us to believe we are dealing with special creatures with
remarkably developed brains.
"Major riddles of nature and relations between species may indeed be
answered by the study of these brains, and these opportunities may die
with the whales if we do not act now."
The fascinating behaviour of New Zealand orcas continued to be reported.
Following the earlier accounts, Patrick Kavanagh and companions came
across a pod of five orcas eight miles north-east of Whale Island, Bay of
Plenty.
Two females, who were apparently trailing the rest, appeared to be very
inquisitive and repeatedly approached the boat which Kavanagh was in.
He decided to join them in the water. "One swam straight towards me and
very, very slowly passed beneath, lying on her side. As her eye levelled
with mine, she momentarily stopped and seemed to rise slowly to within an
arm's length of my face. I remember her large dark eye moving up and down
as she looked at me."
Her curiosity satisfied, she moved on and swam up to the other whale. They
both then hung in the water at the surface, side by side, but facing
opposite directions. Kavanagh observed closely from about 10m away.
After a while, the first whale turned and headed slowly towards him. "I
noticed she was swaying slightly from side to side as she approached. I
must admit I was a little worried when only a metre away she showed no
sign of stopping.
"She was very deliberate in what she was doing and finally stopped
literally just a few centimetres from my face. I was very tempted to touch
her, and indeed if I had just nodded my head, I would have, but I didn't
want to spoil things."
Instead he decided to get a photograph, so after a few seconds "that
seemed like hours", he slowly backed off so that he could get more than
just black in the shot. This seemed to break the contact for she moved
slowly away and rejoined the other orca who was still in the same
position, some 10m away.
Again they hovered, this time nose to nose. No sound was heard from
either, but after a good 20 seconds in this position the second orca dived
underneath the first. It then did exactly the same as the first had done:
the same swaying and the same slow approach, and stopped the same distance
from Kavanagh's face. "I got the impression that the first had given the
second the OK to come and have a look at me," he said.
After a few seconds, this whale moved off and, together with the first
one, slowly dived and was gone.
Kavanagh climbed back on to the boat speechless, and scarcely believing
the experience that he had just had.
The whales stayed nearby, and made many close approaches to the boat. At
one stage the first female swam by on her side with her mouth wide open.
In total that day, Kavanagh and his friends spent around two and a half
hours with the orcas. It is something that had a profound effect: "I find
it hard to express the emotions I felt after this, but can only say I had
a multitude of feelings, all of them good."
In 1994, my son Brady met orcas in the same marine lab area as biologist
Todd Sylvester. When Brady slipped into the water with his bulky video
camera, four whales made repeated passes, barrel-rolling as they swept by,
as if to examine him more easily.
Thinking they had departed, Brady stopped the camera. Soon after, he felt
something nudge his left fin. "Looking down, I was astonished to find a
large female gently holding my bright yellow fin in her teeth as if to
say: 'Here I am, dummy!' I learned my lesson and kept the camera rolling
from then on."
A large black cloud was blocking the setting sun and it was getting very
dim in the water. But on the seabed 10m below, Brady could see white
bellies flashing and suspected the whales were up to something.
Snorkelling down, he found two females and a juvenile rolling belly up,
apparently rubbing their heads in the sand. He made repeated dives to try
to see what was going on. The whales would go up to the surface to
breathe, then return to the same spot to continue their peculiar activity.
On his last dive, he got right down among them and saw a small ray erupt
out of the sand from near their heads. Too short of breath to stay and see
what happened next, Brady returned to the surface. He feels fairly sure
that the whales were trying to scare the ray off the sea floor. But why?
"I have no idea if they were playing, trying to teach the young one or
show me something," he said. "We returned to the shore in darkness,
excited and elated."
When Brady compared this video footage with material from a previous orca
encounter in the same area, he was delighted to discover that the same
female who mouthed his fin had eyeballed him closely three years earlier.
"Hi dummy!"
From DIVER - August 1999