In Patagonia, killer whales snatch seal lion pups from the shore. But as Steve Backshall recalls, these apex predators don’t just kill for food: they kill for fun.
When filming in the region, the camera team witnessed the powerful whales beaching themselves to hunt their shore-based prey.
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But rather than instantly kill the pup, the orcas seemed to play with it, tossing it around with their tails.
The team also found several seal lion carcasses on the beach with bite marks, having been killed but not eaten.
And in another trip to British Columbia, Steve and his team saw something much more disturbing, saying: “It’s really tough for you as an observer to see an animal going through so much stress and pain and overwhelming exertion, and then for it not even to result in precious calories for the orca. It seems so cruel.”
This is an example of surplus killing, where animals kill more than they can eat. This behaviour has also been recorded in foxes, wolves and hyenas.
Watch the brutal footage below.
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