waters in the mid-1970s, thanks to restrictions from the Marine Mammal Protection Act. The last animals were taken for public display in U.S. In the 1960s and 1970s, aquariums and marine parks like SeaWorld collected wild-caught orcas, but public opinion took a turn when it was revealed that professional orca catchers like Ted Griffin used explosives to corral the creatures into nets, where they sometimes tangled and drowned. But people have also worked alongside the powerful creatures: Australian whalers in the 1800s cooperated with orcas to capture and kill baleen whales, a tradition that may have originated thousands of years before with Indigenous Australian hunters. When Pliny the Elder recorded the orca in his first-century encyclopedia, he described it as “an enormous mass of flesh armed with teeth” that offered no mercy.
Humans have long feared and revered the animals, also known as “killer whales,” which are not actually whales but instead the largest member of the family that includes dolphins. Their recent attacks on sailing yachts have made news, but our encounters with the predators go way back. Few animals captivate the human imagination like orcas.
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