WATCH: incredible drone footage shows orcas and dolphins hunting together for the first time
Nature's newest collaboration.
Orcas (left), Dolphin (right)
Orcas and dolphins provide constant fascination with their ever-evolving behaviors (see: salmon hats). But the two becoming hunting collaborators? That’s on a new level.
For the first time ever, both species were filmed working as a team to hunt salmon off the coast of British Columbia, according to a new study published in Scientific Reports.
The partnership works a little something like this: Pacific white-sided dolphins act as “scouts” searching for massive Chinook salmon, according to Sarah Fortune, a marine scientist at Dalhousie University and the report’s lead author. Once the salmon are spotted, Northern resident orcas, who have been following close behind, make the kill and leave the smaller scraps for the dolphins. Whole salmon are too big for dolphins to hunt and eat on their own. So, everybody wins…except the salmon, of course.
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In this dynamic, orcas theoretically get to conserve energy while dolphins seem to get protection from other subspecies of orcas that do hunt them. Furthermore, neither species acted aggressively towards one another, leading experts to conclude this is a consensual, organized, and mutual relationship.
How did this discovery come about, exactly? Technically by accident.
Drone pilot Keith Holmes had been capturing footage for a different study when he first caught the sighting. Researchers then placed tags with forward-facing cameras onto some orcas, allowing them to investigate their interactions with the dolphins. These cameras showed that even deep underwater, the orcas were trailing the dolphins.
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Underwater sound recordings also showed both species were echolocating, taking turns to vocalize clicks to locate prey. “This might suggest that the dolphins and the killer whales are eavesdropping on each other,” explained Fortune.
There are still several unknowns to this: whether or not cross-species communication is actually happening, if this is indeed a new habit, or what this means for the already dwindling salmon population. But it’s all fascinating nonetheless.
The study also shows how, as Fortune put it, that aspect of whale culture is “perhaps a bit more complex than we initially understood, which is exciting.”
“Most people are aware that killer whales have strong culture, and that they’re a very social species and specialised hunting strategies," she said. "But as social as they are, when it comes time to hunt and to catch salmon, they turn into lone wolves. To see them likely cooperatively hunting with another species shows how adaptable they are to changing and refining their hunting strategy.”
“Every now and then, you get kind of lucky and something unexpected happens,” Fortune concluded, “This is one of those lucky things.”