Killer whales are absolutely fascinating. From Killers in Eden:
Between the 1830s and 1930 a strange meeting of species took place in the South-Eastern NSW port of Eden.For nearly 100 years a pod of around 30 killer whales systematically partnered their human counterparts in hunting the baleen whales that migrated along the East Coast of Australia.
Firstly herding the gentle giants into Twofold Bay, notifying the whalers that they had arrived with the ‘prey’, and then actively and cooperatively participating in the kill — what was most likely an extended family grouping of killer whales had somehow come to the idea that it was in everybody’s best interests to participate in this unusual manner.
While it’s been long acknowledged that killer whales display an incredible amount of social cohesion, cooperation, intelligence and the ability to learn, rarely have they interacted with humans in so focused and sustained a way as the whales of Eden.
What’s hard to believe is the stories such as the killer whales becoming entangled in ropes only to hold perfectly still while their human co-hunters released them, or of whalers falling into the water only to be ‘protected’ by a killer whale until they could be hauled out.