err they are carnivores, apex predators and extremely efficient killers. they feed on anything from larger fish species through seals, walrus and other whales. they are extremely smart and aggressive predators, hence "killer."
Flat Wrong.
Orcinus orca was first commonly named " the Whale Killer" by fishermen. It was flipped to "Killer Whale" at some point. There has never been a successful predation by one on man. There have been a few Eskimos who reported being "stalked" on ice floes, but not attacked. They are apex predators, but even those concentrated on marine mammal predation have never looked at man as a prey item.
The problem with them is they view everything as a toy, including trainers. This particular whale "Tilicum" is also fond of being very rough with humans, and was used as a breed bull, not a performer.
Most likely, this accident will be trainer error in the end. It seems she was at the wrong place when the animals were being "shifted" prior to the upcoming show, and may have thought that "Tilicum" was already out of the main pool. In researching, it seems that she wasn't one of the trainers who worked at all with this whale.
If I can, I will find some pictures of a transient pod that I was amazed to run into off of Ft. Lauderdale a few years back on a blue water research dive. They were following a deep school of tuna in the gulf stream. We were at 95 feet in 1800 feet of water with 200+ feet of viz, watching a huge school of Tuna pass underneath at around 250 feet, turned and looked up to see 4 huge shadows coming down to us. Dumfounded isn't the word for our looks. A big male positioned between us and the rest of the pod of orcas, and slowed to almost a stop about 30 feet away, just observing us. We weren't that interesting, in the end, and they continued following the tuna.
Picture may have been from the same pod, taken in Barbados soon after we had run into them.
