In 2019, a fin whale beached itself along the Gulf of California in Mexico. The gigantic creature was so frightened by the team of orcas trying to take it down that it ran itself into the ground on the beach and later died.
While there have been only two documented instances of fin whales beaching themselves to escape killer whales, these giant mammals are being attacked more often, according to experts like Robert Pitman, a biologist who specializes in the study of killer whales at Oregon State University.
Do Killer Whales Normally Attack Fin Whales?
We don’t know for sure how often orcas attack fin whales because we still live in an era when large whales are recovering from commercial whaling. While their numbers are bouncing back, says Pitman, they aren’t where they once were, so it’s difficult to know whether this is normal behavior.
The U.S. officially outlawed whaling in 1970. Before that, in 1946, the International Whaling Commission (IWC) moved to protect whales, which had seen their numbers drop drastically as a result of whaling, a multi-million dollar industry in the 1900s. The use of other fossil fuels also became more reliable than whale oil.
