Orcas are massive, dynamic carnivores and they are intelligent to a point of self-awareness, playfulness and vindictiveness, with an ability to strategize and develop culture and dialects. They are certainly capable! Killer whales have been known to kill people in the wild they do not know! Wild Orca Attacks. Japanese Whaling Crew Eaten Alive By Killer Whales, 16 dead . News of a trainer being killed by a killer whale at SeaWorld Orlando today doesn't change the fact that these giants, while deadly predators, do not kill humans at sea. In fact, wild orcas have even cooperated with humans, like the ones at Twofold Bay on the southeast coast of Australia in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, who would aid human whalers by alerting them to the presence of whales, and hauling in the catch, in exchange for delicacies. Remember that most wild orcas have very very small interactions with humans. In the 1910s the Terra Nova Expedition recorded that killer whales had attempted to tip ice floes on which an expedition photographer and a sled dog team were standing. Finally, they drove it off by striking it with oars. There are few recorded cases of wild orcas threatening humans; none have been known to be fatal. Sometimes, the slaves rebel "Unlike wild killer whales, captive killer whales are reported to have made nearly two dozen attacks on humans since the 1970s, some of which have been fatal." Share 86K. There is no documentation of a "killer" whale having ever killed a human being. The reason that proportionally more injuries happen in captivity is simply because the amount of time spent near each other is higher. Killer whales feature strongly in the mythologies of indigenous cultures, with their reputation ranging from being the souls of humans to merciless killers. From Wikipedia. TOPICS: animals environment Japan whale. I saw a news story about an albino Killer Whale this morning and started wondering why you never hear about Orcas attacking humans. A Google search shows that while captive Orcas have attacked their trainers there are practically no documented attacks by wild whales. Tweet. Since the attack occurred in the dark, we can't be certain it was a killer whale. Why don't wild orca whales eat humans when given the opportunity? But I believe you’ll find it much more interesting than many believe it to be. A Japanese whaling crew has fallen victim to a dramatic full on assault by a school of killer whales, killing no less than 16 crew members and injuring 12, has reported the Japanese Government this morning. There are no reports of whale attacks on humans in the wild, although some have be known to happen in captive situations. To answer this, let me fine-tune the question slightly, and make it more specific. The only time one has ever even tried to harm a human was in an incident at an aquarium where the poor Orca (I prefer to call them Orcas) was probably stressed into a kind of cetacean breakdown. An orca dragged a diver in New Zealand below the ocean's surface for more than 40 seconds earlier this month, a newspaper in that country reported Sunday. Attacks on wild killer whales by humans were, until recently, far more common and governments encouraged their shooting because of the competition for fish. The answer to this is not as complicated as many make it out to be. Though local media characterized the harrowing incident as an “attack,” many people who work with wild … Wild killer whales are not considered a threat to humans, but there have been cases of captive orcas killing or injuring their handlers at marine theme parks.