Can Killer Whales Chase The Sharks Away From Cape Cod?

Old Thom, the Chatham Whale... photo from Capeshores Charters

In case you haven't heard, Cape Cod has a shark problem. It's not really a "problem," and is in fact a sign of a healthy ecosystem, but a tourist-dependent beach destination with Great White Sharks offshore is a soon-to-be non-destination. All it would take is one fatal shark attack on a human to get the ball rolling.

There's not much we can do about it that doesn't involve a wanton act of mass-production animal cruelty. A mass culling of the Cape Cod seal population would be needed, as seals are what the sharks come for. We could also kill the sharks, which are currently protected under federal law.

Or we could just let nature take her course, as people say. Nature works in many mysterious and wonderful ways, and one of these Ways may be taking place just offshore.

A charter fisherman about ten miles off of Chatham spotted an Orca yesterday. We don't mean Quint's doomed boat when we say "Orca," we mean "Killer Whale." It most likely wandered down from the Bay of Fundy, and is relatively unusual in Cape Cod waters.

Another thing that was unusual for a long time on Cape Cod was the presence of a multitude of Great White Sharks just offshore. However, this soon (and by soon, we mean "a couple of years") considered to be the new normal. Why not Orcas?

Orcas do come to New England. The Coast Guard cutter Campbell came across a pod of killer whales about 150 miles off Nantucket in 2014. Experts blame melting Arctic ice and associated whale-food-related problems.

"Don't tell Old Thom that I'm here, OK?" (photo, by our England correspondent Jodi Turck, of seals off Clacton-on-Sea, England)

I'm no marine biologist, but I read 30 minutes of whale stuff, and I'll tell you what I gained from it.

- The whale in question is almost certainly Old Thom, a whale who tends to stray from his fellow killer whales up in Labrador and Newfoundland. He has been spotted in the Bay of Fundy a few times recently.

- Old Thom is about 30 feet long and weighs 8 tons.

- Old Thom comes from a population of whales who don't hunt seals. His peeps prefer to hunt and eat dolphins and Minke Whales. His fellow whales are Specialists, which means "whales that only eat one kind of food."

- This sort of takes the steam out of "Maybe the killer whales will eat all of the seals and end our associated Great White Shark problem."

- A Dr. Hamilton at the New England Aquarium scoffed at the idea of sharks and whales doing the Batman vs Superman thing off of Monomoy. He laughed and said "Maybe in fantasy land" when the Boston Globe asked him about it.

- Scientists laughed and said "Maybe in fantasy land" fifteen years ago if you asked them about Great White Sharks making a summer home off Cape Cod.

- Cape Cod has adequate dolphin and Minke Whales (named for Meincke, a Norwegian sailor who mistook one for a Blue Whale and has been goofed on ever since over it) population to keep Old Thom very well fed.

- Minke whales are usually what you see if you go on a Cape Cod whale watch.

- I have no idea if any (or how many) Minke Whale beachings were a Minke choosing suffocation over being eaten by an Orca.

- Though not listed as an Orca food item, a Beluga Whale got itself into the Taunton River in Fall River and hung out for a few days in 2014. Killer Whales have been spotted upriver in Japan and even in the Columbia River in the US.

- A whale who specializes in seals may not even recognize a fish as a food item, and the same probably goes for whales who eat other whales.

- From what I have gathered, it would be very unusual for Old Thom to buck evolution and change his diet to seals.

- Still, Old Thom could be useful. The one thing that a Great White Shark fears is a Killer Whale.

- Orcas can and do eat anything they want. There are cases of a pod taking out a juvenile Blue Whale. Adult sperm and blue whales are the only whales that an Orca wouldn't cross. Even a large adult GWS is no match for an Orca.

- This website once jokingly suggested that we solve Cape Cod's shark problem by building robot killer whales to patrol the coast off of popular resort beaches. It looks like we could get to test that theory out.

- Several instances have been recorded where an Orca killed a Great White Shark. I have never read of a GWS beating an Orca, and I'll let you know right now that I am researching a future article (tentatively called "Massachusetts Animal Fights: Who Wins?") on which animals in our region can whip ass on which other animals. "Great White vs Orca" just went to the top of that article.

- An Orca holds several advantages on a Great White Shark in a fight. They are almost twice as long as a GW, and often weigh 4-8 times as much as one. Orcas hunt in packs, and will focus on a big fish like a shark if they wish. They are much stronger. They are also much more intelligent, using an amazing knowledge of shark biology when fighting one.

- In combat, an Orca who gets a hold of a GWS will turn it upside down. This induces a state of paralysis called "tonic immobility" in the shark, who is then torn to pieces by the Orca. A victorious Orca will eat only the liver of the shark, and let the rest of the carcass sink to the bottom.

- A tagged Great White Shark who was in a group of sharks that a pod of Orcas attacked off the San Francisco area was observed to immediately dive to 500 feet and swim non-stop to Hawaii.

- Again, Old Thom isn't from a population that A) eats sharks or B) eats seals, which would put Old Thom into competition with sharks.

- Our sharks here on Cape Cod may or may not know that.

- If Old Thom gets closer to shore and smokes a Porker, it may drive other Great Whites away.

- Old Thom poses almost no threat to humans, with one huge exception. To my knowledge, there have been three attacks on humans by an Orca.

- One involved an Orca bumping a child who was swimming. The child was uninjured.

- Another case involved a whale biting a bag of fish that a diver had tied to his arm, and he dragged the diver around for a minute.

- A surfer at Port Sur, California was bitten and released by an Orca, and this is the only case documented where a wild Orca attacked a human. The surfer required 100 stitches.

- These three incidents are all that they have documented. Killer Whales range all over the world, and only three attacks have been recorded on humans... and only one of them was a "real" attack.

- An Orca in captivity is a different story. Dozens of trainers have been attacked. Even the well-known Shamu bit a woman, giving her 200 stitches.

- I have never heard of nor have I been able to find any documentation of Killer Whales in Cape Cod Bay. Larger whales than the Killers wash upon South Shore beaches all the time.                                

- The chances that a pod of Killer Whales will colonize New England is very small, but not impossible, Killer Whales roll in pods, and it must take a bit of convincing to get them to say "Screw Newfoundland and Minke Whales... let's go to Cape Cod and start eating seals."

- If a pod of Killer Whales took up residence on Cape Cod, however, they would stand a good chance of scaring our sharks away. We would then get an Apex Predator Upgrade, with the added bonus of losing an AP that attacks humans and gaining one that will only attack you if you try to force him to bounce a ball on his nose at Sea World.

- Great White Sharks vs Orca is probably not going to be happening here, but it is something to think about if we start seeing more of Old Thom and his buddies in the waters off of Monomoy.

Something else may be targeting him soon....