Episode 47 - Attempts by Wild Killer Whales to Provision People

Returning guest Jared Towers from Bay Cetology joins us on this episode of After the Breach Podcast to discuss a paper he co-authored in the Journal of Comparative Psychology, "Testing the Waters: Attempts by Wild Killer Whales (Orcinus orca) to Provision People (Homo sapiens)."

Before getting into the paper, we talk a bit about the recent release of the updated Bigg's killer whale identification catalog! This is the first updated catalog since 2019 and hosts Sara and Jeff talk with Jared about the release.

We move into the discussion about Jared's paper, which made international media when it was published earlier this year. What does it mean to provision people? What populations of killer whales are doing this? Why might they be doing this, what are possible motivations? What types of prey are they sharing? We discuss these questions and more with Jared, and we all share some examples of this from of our own experiences on the water with killer whales. 

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Links from this episode:

• Testing the Waters: Attempts by Wild Killer Whales (Orcinus orca) to Provision People (Homo sapiens): https://psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/2026-29805-001.html
• Photo-identification Catalogue and Status of the Coastal Subset of the West Coast Transient Population of Bigg’s Killer Whale in British Columbia, Canada: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/398258949_Photo-identification_Catalogue_and_Status_of_the_Coastal_Subset_of_the_West_Coast_Transient_Population_of_Bigg's_Killer_Whale_in_British_Columbia_Canada
• Bay Cetology: https://baycetology.org/
• Finwave: https://finwave.io/