Orca whales.

We have been learning about endangered animals. Each person in our class chose an animal from a list. I chose the Orca whale. I learnt whilst researching that orcas are not endangered but I didn't want to start over. I am happy with my work and hope you learn something new!

Planning

When you think of an orca whale you think of deadly predators that have no other instinct but to kill. It turns out that orca whales are some of the most graceful and civilised creatures in the animal kingdom.

Orca’s live all over the world and have one of the largest ranges for survival in the world. Male orca whales can grow up to nine point five meters long and females can grow up to eight. This incredible size makes them one of the largest predators on the planet!

Orca whale’s main diet includes seals, sea birds, turtles, octopus and squid. They are social creatures and hunt in pods (groups) like wolves. Orca’s use echolocation to hunt, whales make a sound and listen for it to bounce back and echo to determine where things are and how big they are.

Each pod has a different sound so they can identify members of their pod and members of another pod.

There are thought to be three types of whale pods, off shore, resident and transient. Transient pods migrate regularly to follow their prey. They have small pods, with 2-5 whales in each pod.Resident pods stay in one area, close to the shore. They contain both genders are have a very tight and trusting bond, a resident pod has between 10-50 whales in it. Offshore pods prefer open water. They are also very large pods, consisting of  30-60 orcas in each pod.

Orca’s tend to mate with members of other pods to avoid inbreeding which can lead to birth defects and shorter lives. It takes 17 months for a whale after mating to have a baby. Female orcas can have a baby every 3-10 years. Due to the tight bonds between members of a pod , newborn calves are well protected. Often younger females in the pod look after the calve and learn to raise young.

Presently orca whales are not endangered because they are not hunted by humans and don't face the problems other marine life do like lack of food. Pollution isn't a huge problem for orca whales either because they can easily migrate to somewhere different due to their huge amount of the ocean they can survive in.

Despite their names, orca whales are not whales they are dolphins. When sailors first saw orcas they named them ‘whale killers’ because they were feasting on whales. Over time the name was switched around through mis-understanding and to make it easier to say.