Remember over the summer when it felt like killer whales were waging war against humans by attacking ships and other water vessels?
We haven’t heard much out of the Orca whales as of late, though this video out of Southworth, Washington seems a little concerning to me. They aren’t attacking boats or people or anything in this footage, but there’s just something about it that doesn’t feel right.
As you’ll see in the clip below, a pod of orcas are swimming just a couple yards off the Washington shore as a brave dog barks at them as it runs along the beach.
Could the orcas just be passing through and this all just be a harmless and beautiful whale sighting? Yes, that could be it, and honestly is the most likely scenario.
But deep down, something makes me think that this pod of killer whales is up to something. I know the name “killer” whales is a little misleading, considering that they’ve never been responsible for the death of a human (insert Tim Robinson “you sure about that?” meme).
However, do we have any statistics on dogs being taken down by orcas? Because I’m thinking that these whales are getting dangerously close to the shore and even endangering themselves for one of two reasons:
-Orcas are still “fighting the good fight” against humans, it’s just that they needed to take some time for recon, and are familiarizing themselves with the coastlines. They are incredibly intelligent creatures and know that if they can get the fight in the ocean, they’ve got a good chance, and it doesn’t hurt to know your “home field.”
-These whales could be asking themselves “I wonder what dog tastes like? we’ve never had that,” and that’s why they’ve been drawn to the shoreline. Maybe they saw the dog walking on the beach with its owner, and decided to see if they could get it into the water if they swam closer.
Are those ideas, especially with the dog, far-fetched (dog fetching pun intended)? They could be, but I bet if someone would have told you this time last year that killer whales would starting going on the offensive and attacking boats out on the ocean, you would have thought that sounded like a stretch too.
There’s a good chance I overanalyzed the hell out this. I probably should have just watched this video and felt the same way that the person that posted the video felt as they watched:
“WOW! Check out this stunning video of orcas passing Southworth Beach in Washington.”
The orcas definitely had a couple of nice tail flips in the video. I’ll give them that…
