Orcas, also known as Killer whales, have appeared in several movies and many documentaries.[1]
Creatures by the name of "orca" or "orc" have appeared throughout the history of Western literature, most often as predators portrayed as being threatening to humans. The first written description of a killer whale was given by Pliny the Elder circa AD 70, who wrote, "Orcas (the appearance of which no image can express, other than an enormous mass of savage flesh with teeth) are the enemy of [other whales]... they charge and pierce them like warships ramming."[2] In Ludovico Ariosto's epic poem Orlando Furioso, the orca (sometimes translated orc) was a sea-monster from whom the damsel Angelica was rescued by Orlando. This killer whale-like sea monster also appears in Michael Drayton's epic poem Polyolbion and in John Milton's Paradise Lost. The animal was known to Herman Melville, who nonetheless already had his antagonist in the sperm whale in his work Moby-Dick. In the 1970s, the killer whale came to be seen more broadly as a monster.[3] As late as the 1970s, killer whales were at times depicted negatively in fiction as ravenous predators whose behavior caused heroes to interfere to help a prey animal escape. The poorly received film Orca features the story of a male killer whale going on what appears to be a vengeful rampage after his pregnant mate is killed by humans; yet at the same time, the film shows the killer whale having the intelligence needed both for vengeance and at the film's end, seemingly for forgiveness.[3] In contrast, the 1974 Walt Disney produced motion picture The Island at the Top of the World portrayed killer whales as bloodthirsty hunters of the protagonists in one particularly brutal scene. In Jaws (1975), the name of the boat used to hunt the great white shark is the Orca, given the killer whale's status as a known predator of the shark. However, in the sequel Jaws 2, the shark's first victim is a killer whale, which was probably intended more as a Hollywood joke than an accurate portrayal of the eating habits of great white sharks.
In recent years, increased research and the animal's popularity in public venues has brought about a dramatic rehabilitation of the killer whale's image, much as the North American wolf's image has been changed. It is now widely seen as a respected predator posing little or no threat to humans. The Free Willy films (1993, 1995, 1997, 2010) present killer whales as victims of captivity, oil spills and poaching, and were influential in changing public attitudes to captive marine mammals. Following the success of the first of these, Free Willy, the movie's captive star Keiko was returned to the coast of his native Iceland.[4]
English-speaking scientists most often use the term "killer whale", although the term "orca" is increasingly used. Killer whale advocates point out it has a long heritage. Indeed, the genus name Orcinus means "of the kingdom of the dead".
Killer whales are apex predators, meaning that they themselves have no natural predators. They are sometimes called the wolves of the sea, because they hunt in groups like wolf packs. Killer whales hunt varied prey including fish, cephalopods, mammals, sea birds and sea turtles. However, different populations or species tend to specialize and some can have a dramatic impact on certain prey species.
^Day, Trevor (2007). Whalewatcher: a global guide to watching whales, dolphins and porpoises in the wild. Struik. p. 89. ISBN 978-1-77007-514-6. Retrieved 10 September 2010.
^Gaius Plinius Secundus. Historia Naturalis 9.5.12 (Latin), in Bill Thayer's LacusCurtius: Into the Roman World. (See also an English translation by John Bostock and Henry Thomas Riley, 1855.) Retrieved February 19, 2010.
^ abJoseph Andriano (1999). Immortal monster: the mythological evolution of the fantastic beast in modern fiction and film. Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 28–32. ISBN 0-313-30667-2. Retrieved 10 September 2010. Orca movie.
^William F. Perrin; Bernd G. Würsig; J. G. M. Thewissen (2009). Encyclopedia of marine mammals. Academic Press. p. 908. ISBN 978-0-12-373553-9. Retrieved 10 September 2010.
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