#Orcas Killer Whales

[fluffysheeps]

Oreorcas 🍪

[namu-the-orca]

91° South

A painting based on a dream I had, from no less than 7 years ago. Honestly I don't really remember the dream itself anymore, but in the morning I'd immediately scribbled down these weird white killer whale-esque creatures and that's all I had left of that original vision. All I remember well is that they were completely off-white with big square foreheads and little nubbins, and lived in the Antarctic. But the scribble sat unfinished for years because I just couldn't paint what I saw in my head. Now I finally could! It's been really fun tinkering away at this and I'm very happy to have finished a "real" painting again. I hope you'll enjoy these blorbos from my head.

Original scribbles from 2017 under the cut!

There were two versions, one with just the trio and one with a whole pod surfacing in the ice hole too. In hindsight that might have been the more visually interesting option. But it's also more cluttered and more work so...

[mostly-funnytwittertweets]

[orcinus-veterinarius]

Learning anything about marine mammal training will make you re-evaluate so much of your relationship with your own pets. There is so much force involved in the way we handle domestic animals. Most of it isn’t even intentional, it just stems from impatience. I’m guilty of it myself!

But with the exception of certain veterinary settings where the animal’s health is the immediate priority, why is it so important to us that animals do exactly what we want exactly when we want it? Why do we have to invent all these tools and contraptions to force them to behave?

When a whale swam away from a session, that was that. The trainer just waited for them to decide to come back. If they flat out refused to participate in behaviors, they still got their allotment of fish. Nothing bad happened. Not even when 20-30 people were assembled for a procedure, and the whale chose not to enter the medical pool. No big deal. Their choice and comfort were prioritized over human convenience.

It’s almost shocking to return to domestic animal medicine afterwards and watch owners use shock collars and chokers and whips to control their animals. It’s no wonder that positive reinforcement was pioneered by marine mammal trainers. When you literally can’t force an animal to do what you want, it changes your entire perspective.

I want to see that mindset extended to our domestic animals.

[acorviart]

Orcinus orca (plates)

(one of these is definitely not food-safe thanks to some glaze pinholes, the other one I have yet to thoroughly examine)

[amanitahouses]

Salmon Hat Party, watercolor on paper inspired by this phenomenon | prints

[lunar-orca]

fat butch orca save me

[omatoxin]

go outside !!!! 333

[johnnydany]

The Orca Is My Spirit Animal Cute Orca T-Shirt

Get yours now: https://www.teepublic.com/t-shirt/38380781-the-orca-is-my-spirit-animal-cute-orca

[thechekhov]

nobody in their right mind will let me do this but I want to get in the water and try to mimic orca sounds at orcas in real time. I know I can do whistles and clicks underwater, and I need to see if

a) they would be loud enough for the orca to hear and

b) if it would freak them out

whether or not I get killed in this scenario is irrelevant. I need to see an orca as wigged out as a cat when you meow at it.

[artofsoul1999]

It's been dark and rainy down here, so I thought I'd draw a piece to fit the mood. Here's one of my favorite whales, A72 Bend. I saw her on the Orcalab live cams for the first time a few years ago and have been obsessed with her ever since. Tragically, there's not many good full body reference pics of her, but hey, that won't stop me from trying to draw her. 💖

I gotta practice drawing Northern residents more often. Their lanky proportions and tiny eyepatches can be a bit tricky sometimes.

[namu-the-orca]

Here it finally is, the full cetacean eye colour info sheet! A long time coming, and an even longer time in the making. I hope that all you cetacean eye curious people will find this one as fascinating as the killer whale eye colour post. It’s a wild world out there! 

[local-hellhound-steals-spaghetti]

Please share all you can about Toa the orca calf, I think his story is very important. I don’t know too much but it seems like a case of activists being but in charge rather than actual experts.

Yeah it was a mess from start to finish. Toa was found stranded on the rocks, with witnesses saying the waves had thrown him up there. Already he would have been distressed and had been on his side on a hard surface for a few hours at least.

They got him back in the water and then videos of these interactions started to surface:

No PPE, giving Toa belly rubs and ignoring any formal rescue protocols (if you're trying to refloat a whale, you're not letting them turn upside down)

The sun was going down and DOC wanted people out of the water. Ingrid was on her way and giving instructions to her team. The decision was made to put Toa on a trailer overnight - it's unclear if that was her decision or not but it's clear that, despite not having any rehab facilities in New Zealand, people were determined to rehab this calf and release it back into the wild at any cost.

So they cobbled together a "sea pen" on a boat ramp in a dirty harbour. This is where Toa would eventually die in a few weeks time. Whale Rescue was already selling the story of a miraculous rescue and the plan to "reunite" Toa with his pod. And lying openly that orca calves had been successfully released in the wild before:

He wasn't injured, they said. He was fine. They just had to find his pod now.

When asked reasonable question about where the PPE was for volunteers, Whale Rescue immediately became defensive:

The call for PPE went ignored for about a day while people were in close contact with a sick orca. And the call went out for more "volunteers" aka anyone with a wetsuit. This sparked immediate concerns from the Advisory Group.

Photos like this started showing up - 6 people crowding Toa in a circle, no where for him to go if he wanted a break from people:

The excuse was that Toa needed help swimming. Yet he was swimming okay and avoiding the fences without any obvious issue. And so the habituation began... Despite continuing advice from the Technical Advisory Group - including Loro Parque and SeaWorld, who both have extensive calf raising experience.

"There is no need to have people 24/7 in the water when the animal is able to float and swim alone."

Finally PPE was being used but the habituation and intense contact with Toa continued. Ingrid gave it the okay and other inexperienced members of the public continued to encourage it.

Whale Rescue continued to affirm to the public that they are merely "duplicating natural behaviour" for Toa

And the cultish and unquestioning worship of Ingrid Visser allowed this to continue - note the amount of people in the water for Toa's "massage." They only started wearing PPE when people started questioning it.

If you're wondering what I mean by cultish behaviour see the comment thread below:

They actually believe that Ingrid was communicating with Toa. Because that's what she told them she was doing. And they believed it without question.

When Toa was moved into the freshwater pool due to storms, it got even worse.

This photo was quickly deleted but look how absolutely foul the water is:

There didn't appear to be any sort of filtration or pump system.

At this point volunteers and Ingrid were being fed by donated food from the local pubs, Ingrid was sleeping on site in a donated campervan and the entire community were rallying around trying to "help." Note how close they're all set up to the pool.

Putting him in the pool also made Toa a lot more accessible. Concerns were raised about the stress to the calf and an exclusion zone was agreed upon. Buuut it was immediately disregarded.

7 people! In that tiny pool! And the photos of the complete flouting of the rules continued to surface.

The comments find it all very amusing!

Roll up, roll up! Come and see the dying baby orca calf!

And then, as we near the end of this animal's torment, Ingrid brags to the press about how she's now TRAINING the animal she intends to release into the wild. Because we definitely want to be training cooperative care and making life saving feeding and hydrating procedures all about Choice.

Remember when Ingrid Visser didn't like the "exploitation" of orcas in captivity? Remember when she said that training "tricks", even husbandry behaviours, is cruel and bad? I do!

It makes me seriously wonder if she just wanted to be an orca trainer all her life.

But anyway, Toa's getting bouts of colic (gee, maybe changing the formula without permission wasn't a good idea!) and DOC is starting to get concerned about him. At this point, people are still denying that SeaWorld and Loro Parque are involved and any mention of a facility getting involved is immediately shut down.

This is what was being said in the Advisory Group:

At this point both SeaWorld and Loro Parque have provided formulas, advice ect. Ingrid Visser was claiming she knew these things all along and that the formulas were from her hand picked experts.

So these are what the comments were:

Whale Rescue thought it was appropriate to reply to comments of concern like this:

The cult of Visser continues to fuel the anti human care sentiment.

DOC starts to report concerns with Toa's health and Whale Rescue decides to double down that everything is completely Fine. Don't listen to DOC, keep giving us money.

The donations are getting up to 20k.

Because of Whale Rescue casting dispersions, anti DOC (Department of Conservation - who put in about 10k into the rescue efforts) sentiments grow.

And, only a few days later, Toa dies. I reached the end of my image limit but I still have plenty more screenshots I can share.

I recommend you check out the documents released by DOC to see the sources of these screenshots - the other screenshots were taken from news reports, Facebook groups and posts as well as videos:

[lunar-orca]

<3

(click for quality)

[animalpayback]

Oh hell yes.

[tokay-blog]