Hi #AmazingNature Community!🌱

Once again, I bring you content that I consider to be of quality, this takes several hours of reading, comprehension and writing.💡📚

But more than that, this is one more publication so that together we can appreciate and contemplate how wonderful our nature is!🐬🐟🦈🦀🐢🐳🐙 I hope you enjoy!🐬🐟🦈🦀🐢🐳🐙🤗

Killer whales, tuna and fishermen: the eternal competition?

You probably knew that killer whales eat tuna, just like we do. So tuna fishing will always be present in almost all seas in the world, including Spain.

Photo credits: Bart van meele
📍Location: Unknown

What you may not know is that there is strong competition between killer whales and fishermen, since tuna is a resource that both seek a lot. Who is winning this competition?

A scientific article published in the Alboran Sea Forum
By Raquel Aguilera and collaborators

Killer whales are characterized by being predators that are located at the top of the food chain, they are also opportunistic carnivores, so they will try to eat when they have the opportunity. They are relatively large mammals, the males reaching 9 meters in length, and the females 7.7 meters in length.

Photo credits: Kate
📍Location: Unknown

The place of the facts📍

The Strait of Gibraltar is the place of this study, this is where the killer whale reproduces, ironically, its breeding season is related to the reproductive migrations of tuna, in the summer months and early autumn.

Photo credits: Mike Kienle
📍Location: Gibraltar

Through the active hunting technique, the killer whales chase the tunas and they become exhausted, so the killer whales catch and eat them.

Adaptation of killer whales to fishing

So far so good, we are talking about a food web that has to follow. The problem is that since 1994 the fishing techniques in this place have been developed...

What have the orcas done to compete with the fishermen?

Photo credits: Nitesh Jain
📍Location: Atarctica

Orcas interact with fishing gear. Incredibly, the killer whales wait for the tuna to be caught and they bite them before the heavy comes to the surface. Ingenious, right?

This information is known thanks to interviews with local fishermen who have had incidents with cetaceans, turtles and birds.

The results of this study

Esteban et al. (2016), based on the observations, say that the killer whales can feed directly on the tunas that are caught, it has even been reported that the killer whales use less energy, since it is not necessary to do a chase.

This could be good for killer whales, but maybe not so good for tuna. During the 2002-2005 period, a decrease in the tuna catch has been detected, in reality, what is done is that the hunting of tuna is facilitated for the killer whales.

Photo credits: Ivanna Torres
📍Location: San Diego, CA, USA

Despite this, something strange has happened, as of 2005 the number of tunas affected by orcas has been almost zero. The specific reason is not known. Since the fishermen mention that they continued to observe the presence of orcas, but they no longer interacted with the fishing gear. This is kind of strange, don't you think?

The search for information will continue

Surely there will be an answer that can give us an idea of ​​what may be happening. For my part, I will continue to investigate about it later. Still, it's always good to get informed so you can help spread the right information⚠️✅

Photo credits: Andrés Casarrubias
📍Location: Dolphinaris Laboratory, Cancún, México

What do you think about this❓

Do you know any other facts about killer whales❓

Let us know in the comments💬...

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