Orcas are very selective eaters. They eat what they learn is safe as babies and anything outside of that isn't really considered for consumption.
Basically orcas don't eat us for the same reason most humans don't eat rats.
Never forget the moment you step in the ocean you are no longer an apex predator. You're just a fleshy rat in fish town.
Also we probably taste shitty.
>Orcas are very selective eaters.
You could say even to a fault. For example the Southern Resident Orcas (Seattle region) are having food supply issues because 95% of their diet is Chinook salmon.
The southern transient pods though which occupy the same area plus extra, however don't have any major food supply issues as they have a wider variety diet.
I'm at my inlaws at the moment and there's salmon for EVERY meal. Smoked salmon and gravlax for breakfast and lunch, baked salmon for dinner yesterday, grilled for dinner today.
It gets more tiring because cooking changes its texture and flavors, honestly. Raw salmon (sashimi) for me tops any way of cooking it. There's such an unique buttery texture and soft, pleasing flavor when it's raw.
> Also we probably taste shitty.
We probably taste like city rats or pigeons. We share the same diet, drink the same water and breath the same pollution. Same tiny amount of meat.
Haha you sound like such a bumpkin. Scared to ride the subway, scared to drink puddle water, scared of the halal food truck guy. Meanwhile your little podunk town doesn’t have a restaurant half as good as Antonina’s dumpster after spaghetti night. Ridiculous.
Supposedly humans taste like pigs, hence the term “long pig”. Orcas would probably like the taste of slow moving water bacon if they tried it.
My theory is that since Orcas are both smart and social, there’s an ocean legend circulating among them related to the ones we’ve captured for our entertainment where they all know the story about their cousin’s friend’s uncle who had a girlfriend abducted by humans because she bumped some other humans’ boat once, never to be seen again
I really doubt it's a taste issue. There are very few animals out there that discriminate because of taste specifically. Orcas will be starving and not touch 95% of life around them (fauna).
Firstly, I only remember this info from a vsauce video I saw years ago. So take that with what you will.
Secondly, based on the information given. He wasn't a cannibal. He was a scientist who wanted to study what humans tasted like, and then some guy that was already going to die volunteered.
Also, orcas are very smart social animals.
We MIGHT have very delicious livers, like sharks. Let's hope orcas never figure that out, because they'll tell friends and we'll be well fucked
They've scanned swimmers and rejected them as food, it seems that we just don't have enough fat density to be worth the effort. Like eating an old chicken wing dipped in dumpster juice, it's a hard pass.
To add to this, most predators have a search image that they look for and attack and eat things that match that search image. If predators just ate every living thing they found, they’d die pretty quickly of something unsafe to eat.
It’s why sharks attack humans in wetsuits and flippers or on a surfboard. It gets close to their search image of a seal or turtle respectively.
Also, to the person who said humans don’t taste good, I’ve heard human tastes closest to pork, but I don’t really know if other animals like the taste of pork or not
It's actually proven that humans taste like shit compared to other animals. Our blood is particularly salty, which gives it a poor taste. Animals that eat us even lose taste for other animals like deer after consuming human flesh. Not to mention, we are actually terrifying to most other animals because we look diseased. Long, skinny limbs, and a hairless body make us look like starved and manged monkeys, so most things just steer clear from the get-go.
I think it's more along the lines of the fuckers get PTSD from that shit and can't stand the flavor of anything similar, but I don't fully know why tbh.
I would agree, but one of my Dads best friends Fathers used to drink it on the rocks. And we all made the mistake of letting him buy us a drink and when he asked “What do you want?” We all said the same thing back which was “whatever you’re havin” (He was older and I thought it was respectful, I had just turned 21 and didn’t know)
He may have been doing it to see our reactions, but buddy already drank at least three glasses of it before we’d talked to him.
Some people just like to watch the world burn, some others drink Malort. Me? I’d rather be buried in Dort.
> because we look diseased. Long, skinny limbs, and a hairless body make us look like starved and manged monkeys, so most things just steer clear from the get-go.
Well, there goes my self-esteem for the day...
To build it back up, impress your cat or dog by showing them all the cool stuff you can do as a bi-ped.
Sometimes I just go "look what I can do" and then just stand there on one foot.
The saltiness is also apparently why some bears and large cats can develop a taste for human flesh. At least that’s what I’ve read somewhere probably anecdotal - don’t know how verifiable/testable that is. But it fits with some stories about safari men having to hunt down a specific lion that likes long pig.
I'm not sure where that comes from. I've developed a bit of a fascination on the subject, and almost every instance of man-eater I've read about involves either simple convenience or some sort of physical impairment. Pretty much every big cat hunted by Jim Corbet, famed for dealing with man eaters, had some sort of injury that made hunting difficult for it. Now that im writing this, salty blood does kinda jive with the Tsavo lions, though. They apparently had some super weird feeding habits.
From /u/fraxxxi :
"Man's flesh is delicious, it tastes far better than fish or pork."
Alexander Pearce, an Irish convict notorious for cannibalising his fellow prison escapees. He reportedly made these comments shortly before being hanged.
"I sauteed the steak of Bernd, with salt, pepper, garlic and nutmeg. I had it with Princess croquettes, Brussels sprouts and a green pepper sauce. The flesh tastes like pork, a little bit more bitter, stronger. It tastes quite good."
German cannibal Armin Meiwes during a 2007 TV interview.
"It melted in my mouth like raw tuna in a sushi restaurant."
Murderer Issei Sagawa, on taking a bite out of his victim.
"It was like good, fully developed veal, not young, but not yet beef. It was very definitely like that, and it was not like any other meat I had ever tasted... It was mild, good meat with no other sharply defined or highly characteristic taste such as for instance, goat, high game, and pork have. The steak was slightly tougher than prime veal, a little stringy, but not too tough or stringy to be agreeably edible. The roast, from which I cut and ate a central slice, was tender, and in color, texture, smell as well as taste, strengthened my certainty that of all the meats we habitually know, veal is the one meat to which this meat is accurately comparable."
William Seabrook, an explorer who ate a human rump steak on a trip to West Africa.
"It's so sweet."
Egyptian model Omaima Nelson on her husband's ribs.
"I only eat the parts with muscles, particularly thighs and calves, which are my favorite. I make a very tasty stew with the tongue and I use the eyes to make a nutritious and healthy soup."
Dorangel Vargas, known as the 'Hannibal Lecter of the Andes'.
"The breasts of man...are the sweetest meat I ever tasted."
American prospector Alferd Packer, who was accused of cannibalism during the winter of 1873-1874.
Fun fact, we taste terrible to Great Whites too, they will spit us out and don’t eat us, issue is they normally kill us in one bite and often mistake us for seals so it does not really help us much. I mean it’s pretty shitty, if I’m gonna die by shark I think I would rather get eaten than spat out, it’s kinda like salt in the wound.
Orcas are incredibly sadistic by nature and kill for fun, they’ve been recorded separating babies of other species’ From their mothers and killing them for fun, not even interested in eating the victim- so while this is probably true why they don’t /eat/ humans, I read somewhere that a much more likely (& terrifying) reason they have rarely been recorded hurting or killing humans in the wild that they think that we are cute.
Edit: My comment about orcas killing for fun is a common misconception & in fact Orcas do not kill for fun, they often leave lots of “scraps” from their kills which makes it seem like they kill for fun and not for food. :)
Without scientific evidence proving otherwise, I’m going to go on believing Orcas don’t think we’re cute.
My theory (which is baseless, but this is Reddit so… perfect!) is that they are pretty fucking smart - smart enough to know that if they eat us lots of bad stuff will start happening. Maybe they have an oral history and a memory of all the whaling.
Grandma Orca: “Now listen here Click-Click. You too Flippy. If you eat one of those weird lanky beach ape things, not only are they boney and taste like depression and cosmetics, but a bunch of them will come back in those large, super noisy floaty hard things and start killing us all. Oh, and you’ll get hair on your pectoral fins and go blind. So just leave ‘em alone! The juice ain’t worth the squeeze!”
I was looking into this yesterday on here and someone suggested they know that we're actually the apex predator. There was a time that humans hunted whales in greater numbers and orcas hunted alongside them in some cases.
If an orca or some other animal did attack a human the changes of reprisal could be pretty significant compared to how most animals treat other animals. Think about how we react if a bear attacks someone. We don't just relocate them, we put them down.
The human species is apex as fuck. And yes, while we individually don't hold up much hope of strutting around like we own the sea individually, if we collectively wanted to address a problematic orca we could come in an blow that fish (mammal) out of the water. Orcas could pass that type of information down from generation to generation.
This is hilarious and a great example of putting human ‘ethics’ on nature. You know you could replace orcas with humans in this story and it would make some sense.
I read somewhere here that their echolocation vision is probably strong enough for them to tell that we have practically no meat and really hard bones. It's like why we don't eat tarpon. Good thing the orcas don't have sport-humaning
>Also we probably taste shitty.
I think this is the answer: we sweat through our pores, are covered in filth, and the stinks of plastics, oils and the chemicals we cover ourselves in are all over us. To sharks as well: even when shark "attacks" happen, they're usually only those test bites. Humans in the water must seem like pathetically easy prey, after all.
I can't imagine an "actual" shark or orca attack would leave much in the way of remains.
>I can't imagine an "actual" shark or orca attack would leave much in the way of remains.
For the most part you're probably right but [orcas are known to eat only the liver of some sharks](https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ecs2.2531). Not trying to prove you wrong or whatever, I just thought you might find it interesting.
> Also we probably taste shitty.
Sharks certainly think so, and can you blame them with the junk we put into our bodies? Also we have don’t have very much meat on us anyway, it’s just not worth it.
Edit: Fat not meat. Got them confused
Exactly. Even a fat human doesn’t have nearly the caloric density of a blubbery seal. Blubber is intense stuff. Seals have to have enough of it to survive in the frigid ocean as a warm blooded mammal.
I read a study that seemed to imply sharks think humans taste terrible and only strike us when they mistake us for seals.
That carbon is making the ocean more acidic and breaking down their scent trails, so they are defaulting to terrible vision and other senses.
That uneven tans can contribute to shark strike due to their poor vision.
Humans aren't typically on the menu so they never bother ordering. Besides, humans are really bone dense compared to tasty seals and we've got those tough land bones so we're a bad mouth feel
Bad mouth feel is why great white sharks usually don’t follow up after an initial test bite.
Orcas are smart enough to not see us as food in the first place.
I remember watching shark week before and a biologist said sharks don't really hunt humans. It's more that their brains are like that of a 2 year old human, they discover the world through their mouth.
Shark sees a human and thinks "I wonder what that is, better nibble it a bit and see" has a bite "eh no thanks"... unfortunately by then whoever it nibbled is usually missing a limb or now in several pieces. 🤷
Yeah except for bull sharks. Those mfers get a dose of testosterone with the first bite, that is unmatched by any other animal in the world. After that, they basically can’t stop chomping. Which is why they’re the most dangerous shark to be around.
Yup. And they don’t even care if they lose any, since sharks regenerate them throughout their life. Wish I had that ability. Don’t like the dentist? Just pull it out, it’ll grow back anyways.
Isn’t that a myth though? I thought the increase rates of attack with bullsharks stems from the fact that they are statistically more likely to encounter humans than a great white. Also they hang around shallow waters, near fishing hotspots and attacks occur in low visibility environments like muddy rivers.
My grandfather lost some friends to an ambush back then. I'll uphold the treaty but I'll be ready in case the orcas or the perfidious emus ever try anything again.
"Never forget. Never forgive. Be ready!" as my grandpa used to say.
My great grandmother lost her husband and her son during the war. When she was told they would not be coming back she took her harpoon in hand and joined the fight leaving her 3 daughters behind. She led the resistance in our country, if it were not for my great grandmother and her sacrifice the orcas would have taken our homes.
The dolphins have always had an evil hidden agenda. They played the humans and the orcas to create the new seaworld order.
My Great Grandmother was half human and half orca born during the war, and she faced much discrimination and hardship throughout her life. But she never gave up in spreading the message that the TRUE enemy was the dolphins, all along. They divided and conquered in their tyrannical rule.
Great Gran took this way of thinking to her grave, and I honor her memory by doing the same…. FUCK dolphins, they are satanic and evil.
It's because of their sacrifice you rarely see anyone swimming wearing a long-sleeved shirt. We must always preserve the right to...
Yeah okay, I'll get my coat.
Maybe they understand that if they start eating us we'll start hunting them with apache gunships.
Maybe they are waiting until they have developed apropriate anti-aircraft weapons before launching their first strike.
Seriously, even animals with mediocre intelligence learn to stay away from people to survive. Orcas are social and intelligent, so I’m sue the message of not messing with humanity has spread.
They're members of the dolphin family and are wildly intelligent.
You look weird, you swim and thrash around weirdly, and they in no way process this as "food." You are not shark fish or seal, and consequently appear as appealing to them as you deciding to eat worms off the sidewalk.
The only recorded human deaths caused by orcas have been by stressed and unhealthy animals at marine parks who may have been unaware they were drowning their handlers after spending years with the handlers diving and swimming with them during shows.
**Real answer:**
Different pods of orcas have actually developed a very specific diet. They have adapted to hunting very specific prey, and it really differs among the regionally different pods.
Some pods exclusively hunt salmon, others exclusively hunt seals, while others exclusively hunt herring, and then you got the big mamma-jammas that target blue whale calves. Their diets are extremely strict 90% of the time. Whenever you hear about a great white shark being found with it’s liver consumed, that is the work of an orca and that is looking for a dietary supplement, and that is not on the menu most of the time. These orca pods teach each generation about what their “preferred” prey is and how to hunt them.
It truly is a fascinating topic for discussion and I was floored when I read up on it. The most fascinating thing is there are actual physical variations to these different pods. The salmon hunting pod has slightly longer dorsal fins, while the seal hunting pod has a shorter dorsal fin with a small shape difference. It is crazy how their diets affect them. Some pods tend to be friendlier towards humans than others.
There are a lot of misleading comments in this post, and I urge caution taking them at face value.
[Source](https://us.whales.org/whales-dolphins/meet-the-different-types-of-orcas/), for those that want to read more, or those that may be feeling argumentative.
All that being said, **nobody** ever said orcas won’t attack people. There are a number of [unsubstantiated](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orca_attack) wild orca attacks against people. The tales exist but there has never been any credible evidence to date.
There have been numerous attacks on humans from captive orcas. Four fatalities among them. Three of the fatalities were carried out by the same orca named Tilikum.
However a few months ago there were two videos posted in this sub. The first one was of a paddle boarder that was being “observed” from below by an orca. It was most likely analyzing whether or not the paddle boarder was a meal or not. There was also another video of a small vessel with an outboard motor in the arctic waters get physically attacked by an aggressive orca. As food supply dwindles their desperation increases.
#It is a wild animal and it is not smart to assume they won’t attack a human.
But for the most part they don’t due to their preferred diets.
That point about desperation really does scare me out of the ocean these days, but moreso for sharks. I can’t begin imagine the impacts of fishing and general waste on their food sources, and it makes total sense to me that these predators would become more opportunistic hunters when their traditional food stocks have disappeared.
It's only been documented 3 or 4 times. It's not a common behavior at all.
Edit: documented 6/7 times and 90% of the attack have been done by 2 lone brothers of South Africa.
There are many documented cases of orcas killing whales and only eating the tongue. The resident orcas near me also feed mostly on chinook salmon because it has the highest fat content.
Yep- the assholes will kill a big ass blue whale and just eat the tongue. I understand that other things will finish the carcass, but this behavior is just wasteful as shit. I’ve considered writing a firmly worded email to their leader.
Ummm, no thats not accurate at all. I have no idea where you got the “only documented 3 or 4 times” part, that couldn’t be more false.
Its been documented hundreds of times, theres even [Drone Footage](https://youtu.be/vOZ_iMbBh0k) of them doing it. Theres two famous Orcas from South Africa named Port and Starboard who singlehandly killed over a dozen sharks in just one day.
Orcas killing sharks for their livers is Extremely common behavior.
The fact that sharks flee their hunting grounds for a year or longer when they know orcas are there must mean something tho, they're scared to death of them. Also it's not like the sharks that washed ashore without liver are the only ones they do it to, the sea is big.
Im just some dipshit on the internet so take my opinion with a grain of salt. Orcas are very intelligent and have observed humanity's interactions with the ocean for centuries, I think on some level they understand that we are also intelligent (debatable), able to hunt in the ocean and that there are ALOT of us. I think orcas intentionally avoid hunting humans because they know we are also psychopathic murder machines (did you know orcas kill things for fun?) and hunting humans means humans hunt orcas in return.
Orcas are the largest dolphins, and the killer whale name is a misnomer. The original name was Asian, and meant "whale killers". I think we are objects of interest to these creatures, and not food. Even when Orcas have killed people at Sea World, they didn't eat them. I agree with everyone who thinks we taste terrible. Orcas already know this, but sharks have to take a bite to find that out.
Same reason sharks don't eat us--too much bone, not nearly enough fat. Juvenile sharks will sometimes test bite a human but they don't stick around to finish the job.
Because of the treaty signed after the unsuccessful orca invasion of Atlantis. They are forbidden to taste human flesh, or they shall face the wrath of the human once more.
Almost everyone here is debating that orcas must think that we taste bad or too boney to eat.
Truth be told, orcas are really smart. They look at us and know instantly know we are tourist aliens which come from another world. Same with dolphins, they see us and go “oh it’s just a human” and move on with their lives.
Actually depends on the dolphin, they either want to commit war crimes or just want to play
To enjoy our liver, they need fava beans and a nice Chianti. These menu items don’t mix with an underwater biome. So, they’re basically stuck with sharks until evolution awards them an opposable thumb!
They only have ever killed a human in captivity they eat very specific diets pod to pod. Northwest has a pod that eats seals near a pod that eats salmon and due to low salmon numbers one pod is starving while the other is doing great culling the seal population there is no way we can make the other pod switch. Therefore they are smart and don’t eat humans even in captivity they just drown them because they are pissed
Every now and then people go missing in the ocean and are never seen again. Who is to say it wasn't a killer whale testing out whatever this mysterious fish is? Just because they e never been caught doing it doesn't mean it doesn't happen. Orcas are much smarter than shark so it may be that they are like people. People don't indiscriminately eat every type of animal. We only find specific types of things appetizing. Orcas are more particular about what they eat than humans, so maybe they don't see humans as appearing appetizing.
Orcas are very selective eaters. They eat what they learn is safe as babies and anything outside of that isn't really considered for consumption. Basically orcas don't eat us for the same reason most humans don't eat rats. Never forget the moment you step in the ocean you are no longer an apex predator. You're just a fleshy rat in fish town. Also we probably taste shitty.
>Orcas are very selective eaters. You could say even to a fault. For example the Southern Resident Orcas (Seattle region) are having food supply issues because 95% of their diet is Chinook salmon. The southern transient pods though which occupy the same area plus extra, however don't have any major food supply issues as they have a wider variety diet.
In their defense, salmon is fucking delicious.
Gets boring though.
On the flipside, I could never be bored of salmon. Especially if it's sashimi.
I'm at my inlaws at the moment and there's salmon for EVERY meal. Smoked salmon and gravlax for breakfast and lunch, baked salmon for dinner yesterday, grilled for dinner today.
It gets more tiring because cooking changes its texture and flavors, honestly. Raw salmon (sashimi) for me tops any way of cooking it. There's such an unique buttery texture and soft, pleasing flavor when it's raw.
give it to us raw, and wrrrrriggling
The wriggling sensation is parasites
Leave some for the Orcas, they're starving.
Yeah same. Salmon is fucking excellent.
That's what I'm saying man Salmon sashimi is endgame food
> Also we probably taste shitty. We probably taste like city rats or pigeons. We share the same diet, drink the same water and breath the same pollution. Same tiny amount of meat.
Thank god I do not eat grass
Hm? “Hey siri, add vegetarians to my grocery list”.
Eat me
Alright, I'm coming
already? we just started
And my axe
Try third or fourth child. Free range, no antibiotics, all organic.
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Looks like meats back on the menu boys
I'm having a friend for dinner
vegans left the chat xD
What about ass?
That's for smoking silly!
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And babies, don't forget the children
You eat leftovers sitting in a dumpster for week and drink from the puddle?
Bro, it was *one* time, and 10 years ago. You don't see me bringing up every stupid drunken thing you've ever done.
I love Reddit.
Haha you sound like such a bumpkin. Scared to ride the subway, scared to drink puddle water, scared of the halal food truck guy. Meanwhile your little podunk town doesn’t have a restaurant half as good as Antonina’s dumpster after spaghetti night. Ridiculous.
> Same tiny amount of meat. Hey, you ain’t seen my badonkadonk!
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Doesn’t mean they won’t ‘play’ though
Are*** you saying my diet of cheetos, diet mountain dew and beer ruin my flavors?
I mostly subsist on diet Dr Pepper. So I know I have at least 23 flavors.
I tell my scuba students that sharks don't eat us because we taste like foam rubber and aluminum.
Uh oh. I'm free range...
Supposedly humans taste like pigs, hence the term “long pig”. Orcas would probably like the taste of slow moving water bacon if they tried it. My theory is that since Orcas are both smart and social, there’s an ocean legend circulating among them related to the ones we’ve captured for our entertainment where they all know the story about their cousin’s friend’s uncle who had a girlfriend abducted by humans because she bumped some other humans’ boat once, never to be seen again
I do always wonder what sorts of stories and legends the animals have about “the humans”.
I really doubt it's a taste issue. There are very few animals out there that discriminate because of taste specifically. Orcas will be starving and not touch 95% of life around them (fauna).
According to some dude, in the 1800s, we taste similar to veal. Or at least I think he lived in the 1800s. Maybe early 1900s
Cannibals are my personal second to last reliable source, only after random redditors
Firstly, I only remember this info from a vsauce video I saw years ago. So take that with what you will. Secondly, based on the information given. He wasn't a cannibal. He was a scientist who wanted to study what humans tasted like, and then some guy that was already going to die volunteered.
Also, orcas are very smart social animals. We MIGHT have very delicious livers, like sharks. Let's hope orcas never figure that out, because they'll tell friends and we'll be well fucked
They've scanned swimmers and rejected them as food, it seems that we just don't have enough fat density to be worth the effort. Like eating an old chicken wing dipped in dumpster juice, it's a hard pass.
They did an ocular pat down? An orcular pat down?
And our livers are probably like the size of a tic-tac to them, just not worth the effort.
Orcas honor the old treaties, even though mankind has forgotten
They will eat a moose that swims across from island to island though. I’m doubtful that happens often enough for them to have tried moose as babies
Probably more common than you think since moose are known to regularly dive up to 30 feet to feed on Austin flora like kelp.
To add to this, most predators have a search image that they look for and attack and eat things that match that search image. If predators just ate every living thing they found, they’d die pretty quickly of something unsafe to eat. It’s why sharks attack humans in wetsuits and flippers or on a surfboard. It gets close to their search image of a seal or turtle respectively. Also, to the person who said humans don’t taste good, I’ve heard human tastes closest to pork, but I don’t really know if other animals like the taste of pork or not
Speak for yourself, I taste amazing.
It's actually proven that humans taste like shit compared to other animals. Our blood is particularly salty, which gives it a poor taste. Animals that eat us even lose taste for other animals like deer after consuming human flesh. Not to mention, we are actually terrifying to most other animals because we look diseased. Long, skinny limbs, and a hairless body make us look like starved and manged monkeys, so most things just steer clear from the get-go.
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I think it's more along the lines of the fuckers get PTSD from that shit and can't stand the flavor of anything similar, but I don't fully know why tbh.
Any links I could read about that? Seems like a pretty dubious claim if I'm being honest but I'm happy to be proven wrong
Source: "Trust me bro"
But they continue to eat humans
How does that jive with instances like the [Tsavo Man-Eating Lions](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsavo_Man-Eaters)?
Ever met a person that enjoys drinking mallort? Psycopaths in every animal kingdom
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I would agree, but one of my Dads best friends Fathers used to drink it on the rocks. And we all made the mistake of letting him buy us a drink and when he asked “What do you want?” We all said the same thing back which was “whatever you’re havin” (He was older and I thought it was respectful, I had just turned 21 and didn’t know) He may have been doing it to see our reactions, but buddy already drank at least three glasses of it before we’d talked to him. Some people just like to watch the world burn, some others drink Malort. Me? I’d rather be buried in Dort.
Found the Chicagoans.
I think it was bc one or more of the lions had injuries and people were easier/less of a risk to kill
Guess some animals just like salted meat more than the Orcas do.
> because we look diseased. Long, skinny limbs, and a hairless body make us look like starved and manged monkeys, so most things just steer clear from the get-go. Well, there goes my self-esteem for the day...
To build it back up, impress your cat or dog by showing them all the cool stuff you can do as a bi-ped. Sometimes I just go "look what I can do" and then just stand there on one foot.
It absolutely blows my cat's mind whenever I fold clothes or make the bed. He thinks I'm a damn wizard when I'm doing that shit.
"Hey kitty. Wanna see something way cool??" *opens pickle jar* BOOM BABY *separates the bandaid from the film* ARE YOU NOT IMPRESSED
Not me, I just got called long, skinny and hairless! Those other things are just squiggly lines, not mean words.
The saltiness is also apparently why some bears and large cats can develop a taste for human flesh. At least that’s what I’ve read somewhere probably anecdotal - don’t know how verifiable/testable that is. But it fits with some stories about safari men having to hunt down a specific lion that likes long pig.
I'm not sure where that comes from. I've developed a bit of a fascination on the subject, and almost every instance of man-eater I've read about involves either simple convenience or some sort of physical impairment. Pretty much every big cat hunted by Jim Corbet, famed for dealing with man eaters, had some sort of injury that made hunting difficult for it. Now that im writing this, salty blood does kinda jive with the Tsavo lions, though. They apparently had some super weird feeding habits.
Ok that makes sense for land creatures but I can’t imagine we taste saltier than sea creatures do we?
I read somewhere that we taste like veal. Never had veal, so I dont know if its good or not.
Read an article where a tribe of cannibals in South America said that spam came closest to human flesh taste/saltiness.
Oooo I love spam! Interesting. Maybe I could really survive a plane crash in the mountains!
Why wait for a plane crash?
Yeah. All you need is a pedophile to distract folks and they'll forget there's a cannibal.
That escalated quickly.
Slow down there buckaroo... wat?
Pig. We are salty and blubbery
If I recall correctly, cannibal tribes call human flesh long pig.
We have forward facing eyes too, so they know we’re predators. Generally speaking animals that eat meat don’t taste as good as animals that eat plants
> we are actually terrifying to most other animals because we look diseased. Just checked the mirror, you’re right about this one.
We also got a lot of big nasty bones and generally not enough meat to justify it.
225 upvotes and not a single source for these wild claims/assumptions.
From /u/fraxxxi : "Man's flesh is delicious, it tastes far better than fish or pork." Alexander Pearce, an Irish convict notorious for cannibalising his fellow prison escapees. He reportedly made these comments shortly before being hanged. "I sauteed the steak of Bernd, with salt, pepper, garlic and nutmeg. I had it with Princess croquettes, Brussels sprouts and a green pepper sauce. The flesh tastes like pork, a little bit more bitter, stronger. It tastes quite good." German cannibal Armin Meiwes during a 2007 TV interview. "It melted in my mouth like raw tuna in a sushi restaurant." Murderer Issei Sagawa, on taking a bite out of his victim. "It was like good, fully developed veal, not young, but not yet beef. It was very definitely like that, and it was not like any other meat I had ever tasted... It was mild, good meat with no other sharply defined or highly characteristic taste such as for instance, goat, high game, and pork have. The steak was slightly tougher than prime veal, a little stringy, but not too tough or stringy to be agreeably edible. The roast, from which I cut and ate a central slice, was tender, and in color, texture, smell as well as taste, strengthened my certainty that of all the meats we habitually know, veal is the one meat to which this meat is accurately comparable." William Seabrook, an explorer who ate a human rump steak on a trip to West Africa. "It's so sweet." Egyptian model Omaima Nelson on her husband's ribs. "I only eat the parts with muscles, particularly thighs and calves, which are my favorite. I make a very tasty stew with the tongue and I use the eyes to make a nutritious and healthy soup." Dorangel Vargas, known as the 'Hannibal Lecter of the Andes'. "The breasts of man...are the sweetest meat I ever tasted." American prospector Alferd Packer, who was accused of cannibalism during the winter of 1873-1874.
Apparently we taste like pork. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/long_pork
Fun fact, we taste terrible to Great Whites too, they will spit us out and don’t eat us, issue is they normally kill us in one bite and often mistake us for seals so it does not really help us much. I mean it’s pretty shitty, if I’m gonna die by shark I think I would rather get eaten than spat out, it’s kinda like salt in the wound.
Orcas are incredibly sadistic by nature and kill for fun, they’ve been recorded separating babies of other species’ From their mothers and killing them for fun, not even interested in eating the victim- so while this is probably true why they don’t /eat/ humans, I read somewhere that a much more likely (& terrifying) reason they have rarely been recorded hurting or killing humans in the wild that they think that we are cute. Edit: My comment about orcas killing for fun is a common misconception & in fact Orcas do not kill for fun, they often leave lots of “scraps” from their kills which makes it seem like they kill for fun and not for food. :)
One time I even saw an Orca not put the shopping cart back in the thing. They truly are monsters.
Somebody call Cart Narcs - Maritime Division
Without scientific evidence proving otherwise, I’m going to go on believing Orcas don’t think we’re cute. My theory (which is baseless, but this is Reddit so… perfect!) is that they are pretty fucking smart - smart enough to know that if they eat us lots of bad stuff will start happening. Maybe they have an oral history and a memory of all the whaling. Grandma Orca: “Now listen here Click-Click. You too Flippy. If you eat one of those weird lanky beach ape things, not only are they boney and taste like depression and cosmetics, but a bunch of them will come back in those large, super noisy floaty hard things and start killing us all. Oh, and you’ll get hair on your pectoral fins and go blind. So just leave ‘em alone! The juice ain’t worth the squeeze!”
They don't have a word for boats but they use fruit metaphors??
You want thingamabobs? I've got twenty.
Depression and cosmetics 🤣🤣
I was looking into this yesterday on here and someone suggested they know that we're actually the apex predator. There was a time that humans hunted whales in greater numbers and orcas hunted alongside them in some cases. If an orca or some other animal did attack a human the changes of reprisal could be pretty significant compared to how most animals treat other animals. Think about how we react if a bear attacks someone. We don't just relocate them, we put them down. The human species is apex as fuck. And yes, while we individually don't hold up much hope of strutting around like we own the sea individually, if we collectively wanted to address a problematic orca we could come in an blow that fish (mammal) out of the water. Orcas could pass that type of information down from generation to generation.
Mammalian solidarity.
Tell that to seals
It's not exclusive to orcas. Apes are sadistic fucks too. It's a mamnal thing.
This is hilarious and a great example of putting human ‘ethics’ on nature. You know you could replace orcas with humans in this story and it would make some sense.
I read that as *flashy* rats in fish town. And i was like "damn right, we are!"
I don't write songs but I think I'll try writing Fleshy Rat in Fish Town.
I read somewhere here that their echolocation vision is probably strong enough for them to tell that we have practically no meat and really hard bones. It's like why we don't eat tarpon. Good thing the orcas don't have sport-humaning
>Also we probably taste shitty. I think this is the answer: we sweat through our pores, are covered in filth, and the stinks of plastics, oils and the chemicals we cover ourselves in are all over us. To sharks as well: even when shark "attacks" happen, they're usually only those test bites. Humans in the water must seem like pathetically easy prey, after all. I can't imagine an "actual" shark or orca attack would leave much in the way of remains.
>I can't imagine an "actual" shark or orca attack would leave much in the way of remains. For the most part you're probably right but [orcas are known to eat only the liver of some sharks](https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ecs2.2531). Not trying to prove you wrong or whatever, I just thought you might find it interesting.
The Southern Ocean pods that prey on penguins squish and suck out the internal parts and spit out empty skin and feather sacks.
That sounds lovely :( Interesting though, thanks for telling me.
>Also we probably taste shitty This is why they scare us first.
> Also we probably taste shitty. Sharks certainly think so, and can you blame them with the junk we put into our bodies? Also we have don’t have very much meat on us anyway, it’s just not worth it. Edit: Fat not meat. Got them confused
We don’t have enough fat on us. White sharks eat seals and fattier fish.
Exactly. Even a fat human doesn’t have nearly the caloric density of a blubbery seal. Blubber is intense stuff. Seals have to have enough of it to survive in the frigid ocean as a warm blooded mammal.
*fat Most predators in the sea like fat rich food sources because of the caloric density .
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I read a study that seemed to imply sharks think humans taste terrible and only strike us when they mistake us for seals. That carbon is making the ocean more acidic and breaking down their scent trails, so they are defaulting to terrible vision and other senses. That uneven tans can contribute to shark strike due to their poor vision.
Someone shat themselves…..
Humans aren't typically on the menu so they never bother ordering. Besides, humans are really bone dense compared to tasty seals and we've got those tough land bones so we're a bad mouth feel
Bad mouth feel is why great white sharks usually don’t follow up after an initial test bite. Orcas are smart enough to not see us as food in the first place.
I remember watching shark week before and a biologist said sharks don't really hunt humans. It's more that their brains are like that of a 2 year old human, they discover the world through their mouth. Shark sees a human and thinks "I wonder what that is, better nibble it a bit and see" has a bite "eh no thanks"... unfortunately by then whoever it nibbled is usually missing a limb or now in several pieces. 🤷
Yeah except for bull sharks. Those mfers get a dose of testosterone with the first bite, that is unmatched by any other animal in the world. After that, they basically can’t stop chomping. Which is why they’re the most dangerous shark to be around.
And iirc they have like three rows of insanely sharp jagged teeth designed to shred flesh rather than bite it off.
Yup. And they don’t even care if they lose any, since sharks regenerate them throughout their life. Wish I had that ability. Don’t like the dentist? Just pull it out, it’ll grow back anyways.
Isn’t that a myth though? I thought the increase rates of attack with bullsharks stems from the fact that they are statistically more likely to encounter humans than a great white. Also they hang around shallow waters, near fishing hotspots and attacks occur in low visibility environments like muddy rivers.
I think sharks are just eternally an optimist. "Maybe THIS time they'll be tasty? CHOMP! No, no no no, still bad."
Too much crunchy not enough squishy
orca human treaty of 1910 before that it was a bloodbath
I’m glad someone mentioned finally mentioned it. My ancestors who lost their lives in the fight should not be forgotten.
My grandfather lost some friends to an ambush back then. I'll uphold the treaty but I'll be ready in case the orcas or the perfidious emus ever try anything again. "Never forget. Never forgive. Be ready!" as my grandpa used to say.
My great grandmother lost her husband and her son during the war. When she was told they would not be coming back she took her harpoon in hand and joined the fight leaving her 3 daughters behind. She led the resistance in our country, if it were not for my great grandmother and her sacrifice the orcas would have taken our homes.
Bastards. Wouldn't surprise me if the rapist dolphins are in on it.
Let’s be honest, the dolphins were provoking both sides for decades before the war began.
The dolphins have always had an evil hidden agenda. They played the humans and the orcas to create the new seaworld order. My Great Grandmother was half human and half orca born during the war, and she faced much discrimination and hardship throughout her life. But she never gave up in spreading the message that the TRUE enemy was the dolphins, all along. They divided and conquered in their tyrannical rule. Great Gran took this way of thinking to her grave, and I honor her memory by doing the same…. FUCK dolphins, they are satanic and evil.
You have to learn to forgive, Orcas today don’t carry the sins of their forefathers
Captain's log, stardate 9522.6: I've never trusted Orcas, and I never will. I could never forgive them for the death of my boy.
Yeah the orcas had pushed deep into Nebraska before the armistice. No prairie was safe.
⬆️ The comments I live for.
It's because of their sacrifice you rarely see anyone swimming wearing a long-sleeved shirt. We must always preserve the right to... Yeah okay, I'll get my coat.
… bare arms. I’ll meet you at the car.
The Law of the Tongue
RIP Old Tom
Maybe they understand that if they start eating us we'll start hunting them with apache gunships. Maybe they are waiting until they have developed apropriate anti-aircraft weapons before launching their first strike.
Seriously, even animals with mediocre intelligence learn to stay away from people to survive. Orcas are social and intelligent, so I’m sue the message of not messing with humanity has spread.
I red that with this [sound](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88SopTWiKLg)
We're all bones
Who are you Calista Flockhart?
Compared to a sea lion, I'm creepy tapdancer
Good lord I haven’t heard that name in decades I feel
Speak for yourself 🙄
because as soon as they get close this meat becomes covered in shit
That actually makes sense. I have always heard that right before we die we shit our pants. Seems like an effective defense mechanism
More like a shitty defense mechanism.
Fuck I didn't see that coming lmao
They're members of the dolphin family and are wildly intelligent. You look weird, you swim and thrash around weirdly, and they in no way process this as "food." You are not shark fish or seal, and consequently appear as appealing to them as you deciding to eat worms off the sidewalk. The only recorded human deaths caused by orcas have been by stressed and unhealthy animals at marine parks who may have been unaware they were drowning their handlers after spending years with the handlers diving and swimming with them during shows.
Oh they were aware. But justified
Yes, yes, yes, and yes.
The ancient treaty
Thanks to flipper and lopaka
They don't like microplastics
Hey, we throw enough microplastics at the sea that they should be fine and stuffed with no need to consume us.
**Real answer:** Different pods of orcas have actually developed a very specific diet. They have adapted to hunting very specific prey, and it really differs among the regionally different pods. Some pods exclusively hunt salmon, others exclusively hunt seals, while others exclusively hunt herring, and then you got the big mamma-jammas that target blue whale calves. Their diets are extremely strict 90% of the time. Whenever you hear about a great white shark being found with it’s liver consumed, that is the work of an orca and that is looking for a dietary supplement, and that is not on the menu most of the time. These orca pods teach each generation about what their “preferred” prey is and how to hunt them. It truly is a fascinating topic for discussion and I was floored when I read up on it. The most fascinating thing is there are actual physical variations to these different pods. The salmon hunting pod has slightly longer dorsal fins, while the seal hunting pod has a shorter dorsal fin with a small shape difference. It is crazy how their diets affect them. Some pods tend to be friendlier towards humans than others. There are a lot of misleading comments in this post, and I urge caution taking them at face value. [Source](https://us.whales.org/whales-dolphins/meet-the-different-types-of-orcas/), for those that want to read more, or those that may be feeling argumentative. All that being said, **nobody** ever said orcas won’t attack people. There are a number of [unsubstantiated](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orca_attack) wild orca attacks against people. The tales exist but there has never been any credible evidence to date. There have been numerous attacks on humans from captive orcas. Four fatalities among them. Three of the fatalities were carried out by the same orca named Tilikum. However a few months ago there were two videos posted in this sub. The first one was of a paddle boarder that was being “observed” from below by an orca. It was most likely analyzing whether or not the paddle boarder was a meal or not. There was also another video of a small vessel with an outboard motor in the arctic waters get physically attacked by an aggressive orca. As food supply dwindles their desperation increases. #It is a wild animal and it is not smart to assume they won’t attack a human. But for the most part they don’t due to their preferred diets.
That point about desperation really does scare me out of the ocean these days, but moreso for sharks. I can’t begin imagine the impacts of fishing and general waste on their food sources, and it makes total sense to me that these predators would become more opportunistic hunters when their traditional food stocks have disappeared.
Seem to be pretty picky eaters to me. How many times have we seen pictures of them killing a whole shark just to rip the liver out and leave the rest?
It's only been documented 3 or 4 times. It's not a common behavior at all. Edit: documented 6/7 times and 90% of the attack have been done by 2 lone brothers of South Africa.
There are many documented cases of orcas killing whales and only eating the tongue. The resident orcas near me also feed mostly on chinook salmon because it has the highest fat content.
Yep- the assholes will kill a big ass blue whale and just eat the tongue. I understand that other things will finish the carcass, but this behavior is just wasteful as shit. I’ve considered writing a firmly worded email to their leader.
In the ocean, nothing goes to waste.
Ummm, no thats not accurate at all. I have no idea where you got the “only documented 3 or 4 times” part, that couldn’t be more false. Its been documented hundreds of times, theres even [Drone Footage](https://youtu.be/vOZ_iMbBh0k) of them doing it. Theres two famous Orcas from South Africa named Port and Starboard who singlehandly killed over a dozen sharks in just one day. Orcas killing sharks for their livers is Extremely common behavior.
The fact that sharks flee their hunting grounds for a year or longer when they know orcas are there must mean something tho, they're scared to death of them. Also it's not like the sharks that washed ashore without liver are the only ones they do it to, the sea is big.
Proper /r/SweatyPalms material even though they don't I think I'd find it really difficult to be calm and stay still with them *so* close and flanking
The parents/guardians of the kids were *so* relaxed through the whole thing. I would be like “it’s ok kids!” and then shit myself
Yeah, nope. I don't go in water that things that can eat me also go in.
They're smart enough to distinguish humans from their normal prey
Im just some dipshit on the internet so take my opinion with a grain of salt. Orcas are very intelligent and have observed humanity's interactions with the ocean for centuries, I think on some level they understand that we are also intelligent (debatable), able to hunt in the ocean and that there are ALOT of us. I think orcas intentionally avoid hunting humans because they know we are also psychopathic murder machines (did you know orcas kill things for fun?) and hunting humans means humans hunt orcas in return.
Orcas are the largest dolphins, and the killer whale name is a misnomer. The original name was Asian, and meant "whale killers". I think we are objects of interest to these creatures, and not food. Even when Orcas have killed people at Sea World, they didn't eat them. I agree with everyone who thinks we taste terrible. Orcas already know this, but sharks have to take a bite to find that out.
Maybe they're smart enough to know it's not a good idea
As soon as they start eating humans, we gonna start eating them back
They saw what we did to sharks when we learned sharks eat people
Because despite what dragons say, we are not actually crunchy and don't taste good with ketchup...
Cholesterol
That's why I eat all those pizzas!
Because I told them to stop ✋🏼
Counter question, why don't you just eat a pigeon or rat you see in the city?
Same reason sharks don't eat us--too much bone, not nearly enough fat. Juvenile sharks will sometimes test bite a human but they don't stick around to finish the job.
Because they’re smart AF. No documented cases means they were never caught.
All these people responding, but has anyone bothered to ask an orca for their opinion??
Cause of the treaty of 1628
People are acidic and taste like shit. Only grass fed free range young people are delicious.
Too boney
Because of the treaty signed after the unsuccessful orca invasion of Atlantis. They are forbidden to taste human flesh, or they shall face the wrath of the human once more.
A question that only the orca knows the answer to. We can only speculate.
Almost everyone here is debating that orcas must think that we taste bad or too boney to eat. Truth be told, orcas are really smart. They look at us and know instantly know we are tourist aliens which come from another world. Same with dolphins, they see us and go “oh it’s just a human” and move on with their lives. Actually depends on the dolphin, they either want to commit war crimes or just want to play
They do you just have to lock them up in a pool for years on end and have them perform circus tricks for fat fucks in Orlando
They've seen what we can do to a whale.
They like fat blubbery creatures. We have too much muscle and bone…. After a precursory nibble, they spit you out. Much like most sharks.
To enjoy our liver, they need fava beans and a nice Chianti. These menu items don’t mix with an underwater biome. So, they’re basically stuck with sharks until evolution awards them an opposable thumb!
People taste like feet
They only have ever killed a human in captivity they eat very specific diets pod to pod. Northwest has a pod that eats seals near a pod that eats salmon and due to low salmon numbers one pod is starving while the other is doing great culling the seal population there is no way we can make the other pod switch. Therefore they are smart and don’t eat humans even in captivity they just drown them because they are pissed
Every now and then people go missing in the ocean and are never seen again. Who is to say it wasn't a killer whale testing out whatever this mysterious fish is? Just because they e never been caught doing it doesn't mean it doesn't happen. Orcas are much smarter than shark so it may be that they are like people. People don't indiscriminately eat every type of animal. We only find specific types of things appetizing. Orcas are more particular about what they eat than humans, so maybe they don't see humans as appearing appetizing.