‘These weren’t mistakes’: Orcas documented sharing their food with humans

Jared Towers was in his research vessel on two separate occasions watching killer whales off the coast of Vancouver Island when the orcas dropped their prey directly in front of him and his colleagues.

Jared Towers was in his research vessel on two separate occasions watching killer whales off the coast of Vancouver Island when the orcas dropped their prey directly in front of him and his colleagues.

The encounters he describes as “rare” and awe-inspiring have led to a new study published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Comparative Psychology, detailing researchers’ experiences with killer whales apparently sharing their food with humans.

“We have a long history of interacting with other animals, trying to feed them and gauging their responses. But it’s very rare for any wild predator to do the same to us,” says Towers, who is the executive director of the research group Bay Cetology.

“This is really the first report of any kind in the literature documenting these cases for killer whales.”

Towers says he and his colleagues were cruising along when an orca appeared, setting off the second encounter in 2018. They stopped and watched it swim around before it reappeared and released a freshly killed seal next to the boat.

“She could have dropped it off the stern or the bow, but she dropped it right in the middle of the vessel, right next to us,” says Towers.

“We just sat there watching this thing sink down into the water for about 10 or 15 seconds until she did a bit of a circle and came back and picked it up.”

It followed an encounter in 2015 that involved an orca opening its mouth and releasing a dead ancient murrelet, a kind of seabird, directly beside Towers’ boat. He says that orca also left its prey floating for a few moments before taking it again.