VIDEO: Killer Whale Uses Fish as Bait to Catch Bird

Whales are the most intelligent creatures on Earth after humans.

They are shrewd, witty and joyful mammals.

In this video, you can see killer whale Kalia successfully baiting and catching a bird, all from inside her pool!

According to Wikipedia, killer whales are very sophisticated and effective predators of marine mammals. Thirty-two cetacean species have been recorded as prey, from observing orcas’ feeding activity, examining the stomach contents of dead orcas, and seeing scars on the bodies of surviving prey animals.

Groups even attack larger cetaceans such as minke whales, gray whales, and rarely sperm whales or blue whales.

Hunting large whales usually takes several hours. Killer whales generally choose to attack young or weak animals; however, a group of five or more may attack a healthy adult. When hunting a young whale, a group chases it and its mother until they wear out. Eventually, they separate the pair and surround the calf, preventing it from surfacing to breathe, drowning it.

Pods of female sperm whales sometimes protect themselves by forming a protective circle around their calves with their flukes facing outwards, using them to repel the attackers. Rarely, large killer whale pods can overwhelm even adult female sperm whales.

Adult bull sperm whales, which are large, powerful and aggressive when threatened, and fully grown adult blue whales, which are possibly too large to overwhelm, are not believed to be prey for killer whales.

Prior to the advent of industrial whaling, great whales may have been the major food source for killer whales. The introduction of modern whaling techniques may have aided killer whales by the sound of exploding harpoons indicating availability of prey to scavenge, and compressed air inflation of whale carcasses causing them to float, thus exposing them to scavenging.

However, the toll on great whale populations by unfettered whaling had possibly reduced their availability as prey for killer whales, and caused them to expand their consumption of smaller marine mammals, thus contributing to their decline as well.

Predation by orcas on whale calves in high productivity, high latitude areas has been hypothesised to be the reason for great whale migrations to low productivity tropical waters, to reduce the risk of attacks on the highly vulnerable calves due to lower density of orcas in these waters.

Other marine mammal prey species include nearly 20 species of seal, sea lion and fur seal. Walruses and sea otters are less frequently taken. Often, to avoid injury, killer whales disable their prey before killing and eating it. This may involve throwing it in the air, slapping it with their tails, ramming it, or breaching and landing on it.

Sea lions are killed by head-butting or after a stunning blow from a tail fluke. In the Aleutian Islands, a decline in sea otter populations in the 1990s was controversially attributed by some scientists to killer whale predation, although with no direct evidence.

The decline of sea otters followed a decline in harbour seal and Steller sea lion populations, the killer whale’s preferred prey, which in turn may be substitutes for their original prey, now decimated by industrial whaling.