Originally published at: Orcas that grab baby porpoises and play with them to death | Boing Boing
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Can’t they just go back to attacking yachts… 
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Orcas are dolphins, and dolphins are assholes, despite their popular cutesy reputation. This is completely unsurprising.
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^^^this!
very true!
ever played frisbee with a juvenile male dolphin? i have. it’s just rude. not cool, young dolphin. not cool.
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Yeah, this episode of WTF 101 is definitely relevant:
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Ooooh, this is great. Gonna have to watch the whole series, now.
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I shudder to ask…
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let me just say that if i could catch a frisbee in that manner, it would not be an endearing “cuteness”. it would rightly end me up in jail.
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Yeah, that’s what I was afraid of 
! I’ve seen enough wild dolphins off of Fort Morgan to have had an inkling of what you might be talking about. 
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I’ve long said that Orcas may be cute but they are truly one of the assholes of the animal kingdom.
They also embody the FAFO spirit as many humans have discovered while being careless around them. Sometimes with horrific and/or deadly consequences. These are giant 6-ton animals with a high degree of intelligence, loads of speed and agility, and over 50 very sharp teeth up to 4 inches long.
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This seems right up there with another cruel sport…
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I wonder about this. There are a lot of types of dolphins – porpoises included – and they’re smart enough to have distinct cultures. Are they all assholes or is it like humans, where some are assholes and others are nice, and another species would have no way to tell in advance? Are the ones who help drowning humans the same ones who enjoy torturing babies to death?
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Good questions. I’ve just started Hal Whitehead’s The Cultural Lives of Whales and Dolphins, so hopefully there will be some answers. (I’ve wondered the same thing about chimpanzees and other great apes.)
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Didn’t My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult Pod do an album about porpoise tossing?
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Sometimes dolphin/human relations get freaky
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There are lots of predatory species in the world. I’m only aware of the one for which we use the word “killer” in its generic/common name. I suspect we didn’t start calling them that just because they hunt live prey. Hell, even the name Orca was chosen by the Romans for that animal because of its brutality. Orcus was the God of the Underworld.
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PREVIOUSLY ON BOING BOING
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