Are whales Killing Porpoises On Purpose, Scientists Wonder
Scientists are grasping for answers to explain why southern resident killer whales — a group of fish eaters that prefers chinook salmon — have also been observed toying with harbour porpoises before leaving them dead, including two cases in the past month in Washington state and B.C.'s Strait of Georgia.
Joe Gaydos, staff scientist with the SeaDoc Society, speculated in an interview Tuesday that killer whales might see the porpoises as an opportunity for a playful "cat and mouse" game — albeit with deadly consequences.
"The thing we forget about wildlife is that they don't really have a consciousness like we have, that this is OK and this is not OK," he said from his office in Washington's San Juan Islands.
"Cats don't think, 'oh, it's not OK to play with it (a mouse).' They just do it. That's what an animal does."
But John Ford, a whale expert with the federal Fisheries Department, said from Nanaimo, B.C., that because female killer whales tend to engage in the behaviour, it is possible they are trying to prop up the porpoises as they might their own young. The porpoises can ultimately succumb to shock, exhaustion, injury or drowning.
