Killer whale behavior may be the key to unlocking some climate-related mysteries.
What's happening?
In the South Pacific Ocean off the coast of Chile, a pod of the amazing mammals was caught killing and feeding on a dusky dolphin — a first for researchers, as Inside Climate News reported.
"Such a thing has never been recorded in Chilean waters," said marine biologist Ana García-Cegarra, who has spent six years studying five of the animals in the area.
The University of Antofagasta scientists had thought the orcas ate only sea lions.
"It's a fascinating discovery," Josh McInnes, a University of British Columbia marine biologist unaffiliated with the research, told the outlet. "The more we know about their behavior and what they're eating is important because they are in a place where a lot of things are changing."
Why is this important?
The area in question features the cold waters of the Humboldt, or South Pacific, Current. Though it is "one of the richest marine ecosystems on Earth," it is heavily polluted with mining waste and plastic, according to ICN.
Warmer temperatures there are also pushing fish such as anchovies and sardines to find new habitats and causing algal blooms that suck oxygen out of the water and kill fish and other aquatic life, unbalancing the food web.
If the killer whales are changing their diet because of the pressures of their warming world, they could be at great risk. García-Cegarra and company have documented the accumulation of heavy metals in spiny porpoises, and those "alarming concentrations of copper, arsenic, and lead" would only be greater in the orcas.
ICN pointed out that a population of killer whales in the eastern North Pacific has dropped from 22 to seven since the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster.
What's being done about protecting orcas?
The research, published in Frontiers in Marine Science, is a good first step in understanding the fascinating whales, which are famously intelligent and elusive. With more information about their feeding habits and other behaviors, scientists can recommend more precise conservation strategies.
It could also lead to more knowledge about how orca pods are linked. There is only one species of the whale, but it is divided into ecotypes based on characteristics such as what certain populations eat as well as their physical, acoustic, and genetic traits.
This pod, called the Menacho group and led by a female named Dakota, is part of one of the five ecotypes in the Southern Hemisphere. In winter, a larger pod from the Northern Hemisphere — home to five other ecotypes — took up residence for weeks off the coast of California.
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