The answer here might be friendship. There are many cases where nomadic killer whales have gravitated to humans, bonding with them and playing games. Trainers at places like Sea World say very little goes into orca training. The whales seem to understand people, and are eager to cooperate and create bonds.
There are a few theories about why orcas don't attack humans in the wild, but they generally come down to the idea that orcas are fussy eaters and only tend to sample what their mothers teach them is safe. Since humans would never have qualified as a reliable food source, our species was never sampled.
The Human-Animal Bond
Orcas are social mammals that will readily bond with humans.
The reason humpback whales save other animals is because their minds are programmed to respond to the noise of orca attacks, whether against their own species or not.
There are no documented reports of wild, free-living orcas ever having intentionally attacked humans. The name 'killer whale' derives from 'killers of whales', not killers of people.
Is it safe to swim or dive with Orcas? Yes, however, you have to be very cautious, because they are still wild animals and need attention all the time. Orcas owe their name “killer whale” to the early whalers Because they apparently attacked and killed all other animals, even the largest whales.
The whales seem to understand people, and are eager to cooperate and create bonds. In fact, the only apparent instances of orcas attacking people have happened at aquatic parks, where the whales have killed trainers. Many experts think these attacks are not malicious, rather a case of play getting out of hand.
Gray whales are known to be very curious and inquisitive, giving them reputation of being the “friendly” whale. They often swim right up to boats and poke their heads vertically out of the water to get a better view of their surroundings in a behavior called spyhopping.
Dolphins saving people
No one knows why, but dolphins have been saving people for thousands of years. Dating back to Ancient Greece, there are dozens of claims of dolphins rescuing people from sharks, helping drowning sailors, and guiding boats through rough waters.
Because of their intelligence and social nature, orca whales are unlikely to attack humans out of aggression or hostility. In fact, there have been numerous instances of orca whales coming to the aid of humans who were in danger, such as when a group of orca whales helped a diver escape from a shark attack.
If you see an orca, Natoli said, you should keep a distance of about 50 to 100 meters (164 to 328 feet) and turn off your engine or, at the very least, slow down. "Try not to approach them from the back or from the front. Stay on their side instead," Natoli told the Khaleej Times.
Great White Sharks Are Completely Terrified of Orcas | Smart News| Smithsonian Magazine.
So why are these dolphins tempting fate? Killer whales are the only predators that regularly kill and devour Pacific white-sided dolphins off the B.C. coast. So researchers were surprised when drone footage showed such dolphins playing within a few fin-spans of killer whales' toothy jaws.
Orcas are very intelligent. Some researchers have done research on the IQ of humans and killer whales and found that the IQ of Orcas is equivalent to that of fifteen or sixteen-year-old humans. The high IQ of Orcas is reflected in many aspects.
"They're incredibly intelligent animals. They are masters of their environment, depending on where they're from. Their brains are incredibly complex. "The physiology of these animals suggests that they are smart enough to know that humans are not prey.
Toni Frohoff, research director at TerraMar Research, is confident that orcas are not dumb animals. "If anything, since orcas are the largest member of the dolphin family, their intelligence is perhaps superior to other dolphins," she told me.
DON'T push the animal back out to sea!
Stranded marine mammals may be sick or injured. Returning animals to sea delays examination and treatment and often results in the animal re-stranding in worse condition. DO stay with the animal until rescuers arrive, but use caution.
Made of very strong and thick bone, dolphin snouts are biological battering rams. Dolphins will position themselves several yards under a shark and burst upwards jabbing their snout into the soft underbelly of the shark causing serious internal injuries. More than Peas in a Pod.
The science makes one fact undeniably clear: wild dolphins of some species are noted for seeking out social encounters with humans. The phenomenon of lone sociable dolphins – for whom human contact appears to substitute for the company of their own kind – is documented extensively in the scientific literature.
The bowhead whales
The bowhead whales are arguably the laziest whales you will find. They, however, rarely visit the Faxaflói bay. They have wide, and round bodies, and they hate to be rushed.
Whales basically have two enemies: Orcas (killer whales, which in fact are not whales, but dolphins) and human beings. Only one type of Orca, the transient orca, is known to attack whales and other marine mammals. Transients Orcas are sometimes referred to as "wolves of the sea" as they will hunt in packs.
Still, its call is the only one of its kind detected anywhere and there is only one such source per season. Because of this, the animal has been called the loneliest whale in the world. Calls picked up by a sensor in 2010 suggest that there may be more than one whale calling at 52 Hz.
Killer Whales
When you think of top ocean predators, you probably think of sharks. Great white sharks, to be exact. But the true ruler of the sea is the killer whale. Killer whales are apex predators, which means they have no natural predators.
Orcas are the largest natural threat to sperm whales, though pilot whales and false killer whales are also known to hunt them. Orcas go after entire sperm whale pods and will try to take a calf or even a female, but the male sperm whales are generally too big and aggressive to be hunted.
“Both walruses and polar bears are powerful in the water. Both could handle most potential predators, but not killer whales,” Kovacs said.