The Killer Whales of Eden, told by Family and Eyewitnesses. Early experimental rough edit.
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- Опубліковано 5 жов 2024
- This was a segment of an experimental, very unfinished rough 2002 edit from a Documentary I started with colleague Matthew Duchesne that eventually led to the ABC doco "Killers in Eden". Key to the projects was whaling descendant Rene Davidson who helped me with family introductions in the 1980s and mid 1990s. They were based on 30+ hours of oral history interviews with eyewitnesses and years of document and photographic research. These original interviews were all done Voluntarily. I funded it all myself. After the interview phase and early assembly of interviews I came in contact with the ABC natural History unit with producer Klaus Tofts and cinematographer Rory McGuinness and we eventually reworked the structure integrating live action recreations , digital animation of orcas and a few new eyewitness interviews and completed the award winning "Killers in Eden" . vimeo.com/4782...
This early compilation features just a tiny fraction of the many hours of interviews I conducted with the Eden locals. Only about half of the eyewitness interview subjects are featured here. ALL of the interview subjects have now sadly passed away.
The information derived from the full versions of these many interviews is being used to create an accurate and spectacular feature film version of the Story.
If you have friends or relatives with great stories don't hesitate to record them. Life is precious and our time on earth is limited. Don't think "I'll do it one day"... do it NOW
Imagine how betrayed Tom mustve felt when they tried to take that last whale before letting him get his cut. Im sure hed gained a love, respect, admiration and dependency on these men over the years. This is a magnificent story, but i always feel bad for Tom. To think that if orcas really wanted, they could easily capsize and/or sink a good sized boat if they really wanted is insane. The story of the guy that fell in the water and was circled by an orca so that no other sea creature could get him before he was rescued and returned to the boat is absolutely amazing and proves that they understood and respected their mutual partnership. Orcas are amazing. I believe if theyd evolved on land with similar intelligence, they might be giving us a run for our money at this point. I think we underestimate a lot of animals intelligence. I think they are hip to a lot more than we like to admit.
Yes regarding intelligence that's exactly what many of the folks in Eden felt, as beautifully described by Margaret Brooks saying "they had a mind, better than a human being's mind". So many of these old folk were just in awe and in love with their Orca companions. I think regarding Tom and that late stage whale hunt that Tom would have gotten over it but been confused and of course hurt because of his missing teeth. The infection and possible cause of death resulting would have been a painful reminder but he was observed catching a minke whale a few weeks before he died
@gregmckeeswildthings9647 thanks for the reply and sorry for just now noticing 😂
I believe you're right. I guess the world was moving on at that point anyways and nothing lasts forever.
Went to vista Eden today with our families and stumbled across the museum… never knew about this killers from Eden until today. Amazing stuff! Movie 100% and bigger and longer documentary. A piece a history that really needs to be shared more across the world. 👌
Cool. Did you see our final ABC doco? @t Also a display going up in the Museum of Australia in Canberra.
@@gregmckeeswildthings9647 nah I haven’t seen the ABC version. Do you have a link to that Version?
@@vikingslav4942 ua-cam.com/video/nk_sDK0yLOk/v-deo.html That's me in the doco. We decided to do the good cop bad cop type thing for a bit of drama to make it fit the ABC's history detective format. So it hammed up the personality contrast that Danielle was a reclusive bookworm and I was a door knocker. In reality I spent years going through the Mitchel library and Natn'l library Canberra looking at old letters and newspapers too and I studied Zoology at Sydney uni also. But otherwise all the interviews of the oldies and photographs stand by themselves. I still hope that the 35mm movie film made one whaling season in 1910 somehow is found all this time later . A few amazing frames still survive.
Why this hasn't been made into a proper movie is beyond me. It's the greatest story of man and beast in history, after the dog, of course. Nice video. Gonna finish it tomorrow.
Yup I'm working on developing it into a proper Movie
I say it IS in fact THE greatest.. even than dogs. sumn abt 2 beings from TOTALLY different worlds.. both basically at the top of their worlds food chain.. them bein enormous/powerful but human intelligence & havin the means on land & to an extent, on their turf, to be just as formidable, interacting & legit communicating to work together for both of their benefit.. its absolutely NUTS! So ya, considering they live ina whole other world, their monster size+how unique & insanely rare it was & even still is NOW.. I'd say greatest by far.. although not sure I'd even put dogs ina "beast" category evn if technically they are.. Orca, great white, bear, gorilla.. beast? No doubt! Wolf, mountain lion, African wild dog? Ehhhh.. dangerous wild animals definitely!!😆😆😆 so, they're both great lol but Orca amazes me way more!
Dogs are boring. And i dogs kill 25 thousand people per year average. No story about a dog is as FANTASTIC AS SUPER ORCAS
Orcas are not beasts like a cow or horse. They are sentient beings who use complex languages to communicate just as we do. Each pod has its own unique culture. They are more like people than beasts. Look it up if you don’t believe it.
@@RuthlessMcToothless horses actually are the same. Different herds have different customs. They have a language of their own as well.
I love the story of Old Tom!!! I always tell people about it. In my country we see groups of orcas near the shore hunting on baby sea lions. This is amazing! Good luck with the movie!!! XO
Never been so emotionally impacted by any other book. I still kick myself for loaning it to a friend? and never getting it back. Will have to get another copy. The movie will have to be very well made to do the story justice, and be viewed favorably by our new generation. Good luck Greg.
Thanks Albie. My vision for a film is very ambitious and hopefully would be profound and jaw dropping. It will be based on the many personal details told to me by the various families and the things they wanted to see corrected in existing novelisations etc which I think people will find even more authentic and compelling than fictionalisations. Danielle Clode has an excellent book "Killers in Eden" looking at the story from a zoologist's perspective.. often in bookstores. The Eden museum has "Killers Chronicles" by curator Jodie White, an interesting compilation of historic newsclippings.
What a fantastic account of old days . Absolutely loved this . Thankyou for sharing and to everyone in the video for their memoirs. Magical ❤
Aren't the oldies wonderful! All of them passed on now but such a privilege to have been able to spend hours with them chatting and talking about their pioneer lives.
@@gregmckeeswildthings9647I bet it was ! Thanks again ❤
The Davidson's were introduced to this by my people, the Yuin, the Davidson's didn't initiate this relationship, they were introduced to it by the Yuin who were used for their relationship with the orcas that they had for thousands of years before Europeans arrived in Australia.
That's correct Drew. Gubboo Ted explains that in some detail in the interview material I filmed and we also described that aspect in the ABC documentary. The challenge with Oral history material of course is to actually get people to explain those things on camera and this early version didn't have any narration or written exposition or voice over , just what he oldies said on Interviews. All this videoing and editing interviews I've done off my own bat as a hobby and determination to preserve oral history . Never been paid a cent for any of it btw.
Presently I'm assembling a compilation of Ozzie Cruze and Gubboo's interviews for the Museum of Australia and all the material I donated and is now in the possession of aiatsis aiatsis.gov.au
Ozzie and the Wallaga lake community have tape copies of the interviews but I've recently digitised it all to be more easily accessed at the keeping place and shared via memory sticks.
I'm still hoping to do a dramatised feature film and the aboriginal involvement would be a major component if not the most interesting aspect of it completely. A major aspect of that is the huge aboriginal influence on the Davidsons, with the family adopting many aspects of Yuin attitudes rather than the other way around. You may know George Davidson recounted as a young boy being befriended by Yuin elders who regularly looked after him for days at a time and was invited to observe ceremonies and learn the language. His sons and grandsons remember him being fluent in the local languages which was pretty rare for a European of the time. Some of his sons spoke too but None were alive when I began interviewing. The thing that triggered me starting to video people is I came accross Burnam Burnam's book and I rang him up and had an awesome chat about the whaling days and his grandfather Bert Penrith etc and his declaration of possession of Britain etc for an hour or so over the phone . He invited me to come have a chat at a big Yuin gathering he had arranged one Sunday. He died on the Friday. That really kicked it all off realising I couldn't wait around and just started doing it on weekends. Noone else was doing it so sometimes when people say "somebody should do this or somebody should do that you just figure that maybe that "somebody" may as well be me... I had a great chat with Max Harrison too a few times though never managed to meet and interview him. Ozzie is always great and very articulate. I have some nice stuff of him talking about the Bunaan grounds and whale oil use in ceremonies all over the coast and that will be featured in the museums and eventually here too probably after he checks it all. I have about three hours of Gubboo talking on all sorts of subjects and some songs. Wish I had more of his songs which were great. He wouldn't talk about some subjects or confirm or correct things that were recorded on paper from the 1800s . I went to one of his dreaming camps in the 90s. Do you know of anyone else who would be good to chat to Drew? Are you descended from any of the families directly involved in the whaling?
Yuin and Davidson's , How cool this is .
👑💜👑
Hi Drew, i flew to your wonderful country from Oxford UK, i agree with what you say and i went to see old Tom at the museum. What a wonderful story.
@@gregmckeeswildthings9647 a depth of gratitude to you good man
Thank you for researching and putting together this wonderful insight into a unique and interesting time in Australian history. Although I am glad that whaling has now been banned, I find this story and all of the characters involved fascinating. Its compelling to understand the level of cooperation, intelligence, bravery and mutual respect between the orcas and whalers.
i luv me Strailain kin folk, they crack me up. From rush-0 to im on smok0! 😝
Great to see it in this doco. We just visited beautiful Eden & surroundings. Ben Boyds state park, the museum. Spend a few nights camping in the bush up the hills with a breathtaking view on two fold bay. I was trying to imagine how those days would have been. Also pre - white settlement . How to aborigines lived side by side the killer whales. Eden would have been the capital of Aus at one stage. Luckily it never happened as the surrounding wildlife & stunning bush would have been severely impacted! Eden is a magical place. One can feel the fantastic energy of the place!! We will definitely visit again! The bird sounds are also amazing! Thanks Eden, thanks for everything you had to offer!! 🙏🏽
Did you see the killer whale 😂😂
I m from BRASIL and always got fascinated by the intelligence and beauty of the ORCAS. This is really an awesome story about a wild being helping, protecting and collaborating with humans.
I trust more killer whales than humans to be honest as we betrayed them, THEY WOULDN T. Capturing the orcas , our beloved friends and protectors and use them for our own selfishness and benefit and at the cost of their health and suffering , using our beloved orcas as BAGS OF MONEY in these circus of orcas, dolphins and belugas.
The world changed a lot since the times of the killers of EDEN , but still the so called KILLERS do not attack us I know why now. They are SIMPLY UNIQUE .
And i will love them forever.
❤️ 🌊 🌊 ORCAS ARE THE MOST INTELLIGENT OF ALL DOLPHINS I DO BELIEVE IT. 🇧🇷🇧🇷🇧🇷
Treasure! Thank you for sharing this fascinating and moving story. Great slice of Australian culture.
When the whale smashed the boat, the Orka came up to the Koorie Grandfather, he grabbed the fin & rode the Orka back to land & help !
Despise the whaling, but fascinated by the camaraderie.
Nice to hear and see Jack Warren and his accounts again. Great interviews of others too.
What an amazing story, thanks for documenting this so well, knowledge from the past should never be forgotten. Is there books and movie's available? Fantastic!
Yeah the Book is called "Killers of Eden" - it's great
Yes there's a number of books. Tom Mead's "Killers of Eden" which was written in the 1960s , a novelisation/dramatisation with quite a few liberties taken but a good effort considering Tom had to try to draw extensive family details and history out of people who were wary and a bit tired of journalists. Also good is zoologist Daniel Clode's "Killers in Eden" , a more factually based scientific account. There are some nonsense wildly inaccurate tellings of the story like "The Judas Fish" and more recent works with fake characters or complete misrepresentations of people's lives.
The Davidsons tried to set family history straight in the 1980s with Don Davidson's meticuously detailed family history "Davidson of Kiah".
The local Edenites have published small pamphlets such as Eden Museum Curator Jodie White's excellent "Killers Chronicles" which collates large numbers of newspaper accounts all together in one place. Rene Davidson Published two books of Photographs "Whalemen of Eden " and "Eden Revisited".
I Worked on a documentary on the subject "Killers in Eden" with Australia's ABC national broadcasting network .
There was a movie/documentary filmed of the actual killers in 1910 though all known copies were lost/destroyed around 1913
Btw our Documentary "Killers in Eden" is freely viewable on Vimeo. I'm presently developing a feature film on the subject.
I watched killers in eden. I love Eden and its history. I used to holiday there 2 to 3 times a year. Always visited Old Tom. It's a magical extraordinary place. One day I wish to retire there.
I hope so
Fantastic story unique to our country
This story is one of my favorite from the animal world now.
Hi! I'm a history student at university in Sydney and I'm from Eden! I'm currently working on an assignment and I'd like old Tom and the other killers to be the focus, do you have any resources I'd be able to use? Particularly anything about old tom's death. I'd love to hear from you
This is the full story of old tom..it also stated in there might be the cause of his death kinda sad what we did to them. I feel like we've betrayed them when they treated us like family😭 especially those poor orcas in captivity
ua-cam.com/video/nk_sDK0yLOk/v-deo.html
Hi! I'm so sorry I didn't notice your comment until just now. Probably far too late for your project but Yes I do have lots of info about Tom's death etc. Cheers
Greg
Amazing history showing how bright this animals are. But at the same time I just feel sorry for the whales that have been killed.
Nature is cruel, but that's nature.
This is phenomenal. Thank you so much for sharing this... it's amazing.
I went to Two Fold Bay about 9 months ago due to the fasination I have for Killer Whales..
But this story blew my mind..
Beautiful part of the world with a even more beautiful history..
I recommend reading Killers Of Eden by Tom Mead..And Tom Of Twofold Bay by Harry Lawson.Both are a great read..
Also on U-Tube these a upload called the Killers in Eden..
Thx for the upload. from a obsessed Killer Whale lover..
That's our documentary Killers in Eden too. This one was an experimental edit of just the interview material as I had collected it
This aspect of indigenous and reincarnation as an orca also is mentioned in the story about Luna, the lone baby orca killed by a propeller at age 6 in Canada. The story can be found here on UA-cam. So interesting!
Let me see if I understand it. The orcas used to help them hunting whales? If so that's incredible.
Yes. And vice versa. The orcas had been likely hunting whales for hundreds of thousands of years. The humans were initially tolerated by the orcas to join their hunts and over a few seasons the orcas realised that the humans could kill the whales quicker than they could. With the Davidson family the killers eventually would invite the humans at any time of day or night to participate in their hunts. It took the suggestion of the Aboriginal crew members to suggest that the orcas wouldn't eat all the whale and it was OK to let the orcas eat the tongue and lips before the whale was towed home to any whaling station around the bay. You can see the final doco in the vimeo link above under the vid where it says "show more"
Greg McKee's Wildthings amazing. Thanks for the explanation
More like sick and sad.
@@gregmckeeswildthings9647 I once saw, on an Attenborough doco, in which orcas hunting a grey whale's calf. When they eventually got it, they only ate the tongue and a bit of the lower jaw. They left the rest of the carcass, untouched. So this arrangement of teaming up with the orcas and letting them have the tongue, seems logical.
@@jimbojamesIV Why? Killer whales hunt and kill other whales and have done so for millions of years. It is natural behaviour. They only eat the tongue and the lips. Killer whales also eat seals , penguins, dolphins, stingray, salmon herring etc. Is that sick and sad? They cannot eat vegetables. The fact is that the killer whales INVITED humans to join them in their hunts.. The Killerwhales were the dominant species in the association. THEY organised the hunts. They invited the Humans. They got first share. Inviting the humans to join in meant that the carcass could benefit aboriginal and european people's survival rather than just be consumed by sharks and much of the remains was still able to be eaten by other marine life. Only 8 whales were taken usually per year. The same number of whales would have been killed by the killers regardless if humans were involved or not but the process could happen more quickly and the whales not suffer for as long.
i wonder if the orcas ever thought that they were finessing the humans by taking the tongue lmao
"These dumbos think they're getting a good deal when we've already taken the tongue 🤣🤣"
Hi! A direct decedent of George Davidson and Elsie Severs here! (or rather we called her Nana Severs) Thank you for putting this on youtube for people to see, I love being able to show my partner and friends! 😊🫶
Hi Rissa!! Oh goodness I loved Elsie so much. I have 2+ maybe 3hours of her talking about the old days and made copies on VHS for a few of her descendants to share but I figure it's time for memory sticks and mv4 files etc. My friend Mathew Duchesne and I recorded her on minidv tape. I'd like to find the original more finished version of that video above which I stopped working on when I managed to get the ABC involved and could do recreations and fresh interviews for our more expansive Killers in Eden Doco. I'm still trying to develop a truly Epic feature. I'll be posting more recent compilations of footage on YT hopefully soon. There's one already featuring the Yuins and a short vid of Rene talking about his scrimshaw.
An aboriginal tribe off the coast been doing the same thing for hundreds of years. Polynesians too from a few different islands.. interesting story. You didn't include the first part.
It occurs with dolphins assisting with people fishing and netting. Do you have photographic evidence of these people interacting with Orcas specifically?
My spirit animal 🖤
Very interesting story. I just watched the Killers of Eden doco. Most of it seemed plausible enough although the conclusion that the main killer whale died due to an infection sustained when the "law of the tongue" was broken, seemed like a stretch. The most credence the whale scientist was willing to give to the story was that it wasn't impossible. Regardless, it's fantastic that you recorded this piece of history while some of the eye witnesses were still alive.
Please HOLLYWOOD MAKE A MOVIE TELLING THIS FANTASTIC STORY!
That's what I'm working towards
You don't want Hollywood to get involved, then we'd have secret agent spy humans leaking information to the Chinese who paid big bucks for the location of the whales which they planned to harvest for their fins to make some sort of aphrodisiac soup. Also lots of explosions, possibly aliens, and a car chase scene where Old Tom is driving a Mustang chasing the Russian mafia who stole Old Tom's magic coral, which he used to communicate with the aliens.
@@snoweh1 I agree there are few things more frustrating than the tendency of Hollywood messing with History because egotistical people think their imaginations are better and cleverer than extraordinary events that actually happened in reality. The approach to my journey and plunge into oral history is always to only include events that actually are documented to have happened or were corroborated in oral history by multiple witnesses. Novelisations have been written that absolutely infuriate the family and townsfolk particularly for the laziness they represent, inventing nonsense about people who were still alive at the time of writing. They could just have gone and asked them about their lives as I have done. . For instance in certain early novelisations the Elder Davidsons were described like characters from Moby Dick , backslapping salty seadogs hanging out in pubs drinking beer with matesand old sea-captains and telling tall tales. In reality they were very religious dour Scottsmen that wouldn't let their kids whistle on Sundays and were teatotallers. I think the realty is much more interesting visually and dramatically and thematically than the cliche's. I've also been methodical about researching directly from family members what people's personalities and characteristics were like. It's also the partial reason for videotaping the descendants of characters to capture family manerisms personal details and ways of speaking. Margaret Brooks for instance would do earnest impressions of her own father JR Logan and would transform herself into him to explain an event he was involved in, such as fighting OldTom with a boat hook and his efforts to modernise the town and introduce modern technology. Elsie Severs and her wood fired stove reveals her father George's counterpoint to that, wanting to persevere with time honoured methods and a simple life . Your comment resonates a lot with me as I know of a number of absurd approaches to the story in the past including an American Hollywood writer who wanted to mess with history, bizarrely setting the Whaler George Davidson up as a medical student who hated whaling, vying as dramatic rival to the son of merchant Solomon Solomon to become town doctor. WTF???!!!! True story! I think he had found a book on scriptwriting and dramatic conflict and tried to squeeze genuine history into some standardised formulaic structure he found in "screenplays for dummies"
Wow thanks for this amazing story!
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Thank you for this great documentary.
i wish they would make this a movie i love this story
Working on it. Hope at the very least to get one made by the 100th anniversary of Tom's death in 1930
BTW, I know the spelling is different but any relation to the Brierly's of Eden? Sir Oswald Brierly was a manager of Benjamin Boyd's whaling operation at Eden in the 1840s. Brierly was also the adopted name of a Yuin tribe family of the region.
@@gregmckeeswildthings9647 yeah his my pops pop thats where i first heard the storys from my pop Thomas Ernie Brierley he was a fisher men from Moruya
@@linseybrierley5170 Oh awesome! So you are from Yuin descent rather than the english Oswald Brierley? I've been interviewing a bunch of Yuin descendants recently. Love to hear any more family history. I'm trying to collect details of the personalities of Yuin people involved with the whaling to help write them as characters for a feature film. The Brierlies especially as I had heard a story that George Davidson as a boy had been taught yuin culture and language by a Yuin Brierley. Most of the Davidson oldies who knew the old stories from their side of the action have passed on now and only old diary or newspaper records or people with excellent memories carry the accurate details of personal details. I have a LOT of info on the Davidsons and various Europeans and their personal lives but not so much with the Yuin whalers or their wives etc There's lots of detail about whaling adventures but not so easily accessible personal stuff. If your family has any good info I'd love to chat further. Had great yarns with Warren Foster, BJ and Ozzie Cruise the past few months.Ozzie taught me how to play the gumleaf! Trying to get as many accurate impressions of different people so that they can be portrayed with consultation with their families accurately and not as stereotypes etc.
@@gregmckeeswildthings9647 is there a way l could contact you plz.
I Loved that documentary
Remarkable!
Great story
There is a small town in.... I think Greece... That dolphins hunt for the fisherman. The men stand in the water with nets. A pod of dolphins chase fish into this cove, and into the nets every day. The Fisherman give them part of what they catch.
It's fascinating the contrast to the Orcas that hunt the Gray Whales along the Pacific North American coast. There, they charge the whale, typically the calves, from deep water, and ram the whale, attempting to cause enough internal damage to kill them. The greys, meanwhile, will try to get to shallow water, meaning 60 feet deep, or less, because the Orcas can't get enough momentum to ram, and will abandon the hunt. Beautiful beings...but cruel, as nature can be...one can see why they have been called both the wolves and the humans of the sea.
Yes interesting the Eden orcas did the opposite, trying to drive their prey to shallow water to strand them. Thy even drove a fin whale and a 97ft blue whale to shore .
Minke whales have better odds of escape in open waters, due to their speed and being one of the few whales with slightly more stamina than an orca (Orcas typically exhaust their larger prey in long chases using their superior stamina). Going towards the shore and getting trapped in a bay is how Minke whales often become orca food. Minke whales also don't fight back, so it isn't as important for the orcas to tire out and weaken it to reduce risk of injury before attempting to drown it.
Sometimes, they beach themselves when cornered.
Grey whales have lower odds of survival in the open ocean.
I speculate that Tom's pod originally hunted minke whales. Laying in wait in strategic locations to launch ambushes. Some minke whales beached by chance, and the aborigines got free food delivered on occasion. And the orcas became important religiously.
Humpback whales are the most formidable opponents of orcas have, and will seek confrontation if they detect orcas. Which sometimes results in them chasing orcas, battling for hours, etc. Most other whales will flee and/or initiate defensive measures.
E.g. even Sperm whale bulls, which are solitary, flee when detecting orcas while simultaneously coalescing into groups while fleeing, more often than not.
So, it's possible that some humpbacks at one point interrupted Tom and his pod's minke hunting and it became a battle. Which was easily noticeable by whale watchers, who went out to hunt the humpbacks. Normally orcas present at hunts were viewed as pests and driven off/attacked by whalers. But this whaling group had Aboriginals who viewed them as their reincarnated kin and protested attacking the orcas. Tom and his pod ate only the tongue of the dead Humpback.
The whalers determined only the tongue was eaten by the orcas
The orca's determined that these strange floating sea monkeys are really good at defeating their nemesis.
So perhaps Tom and his pod came up with this new hunting strategy, by replicating the previous incident. Getting into a fight with humpbacks where the strange sea monkeys operate, the activity gets noticed. Whalers rush out. And the orcas successfully took out a humpback with minimal risk...and get the 4 ton tongue of their pesky nemesis as a meal.
A story I heard a very long time ago . Two Fold Bay .
Wonderful story 🖤💛❤️
Please note a common misconception. The Eden whales never "fed" the orcas the whales' tongues. Instead the orcas always took first share so after a whale was killed the whalers simply buoyed and anchored it in the bay wherever it was and just rowed all the way home. The killers dragged it to the bottom to feast on it as they liked. Only later, after a few days the whale would rise by itself due to decomposition gasses and only then it would be towed home to the try works for processing.
very cool!
❤️💛🖤
Better than the dog sheep which had to be TRAINNED. Not the adorable super intelligent killer whales
This was very interesting
U-TUBE: AN ORCA NAMED LUNA-L98
@@Greggee100 so sad and wrong human choices
i had to post my story about Luna.. Late nineties I was with two guys fishing off my granddad boat's in Nookta Sound. They had a house in Courtenay. I kept it bottled inside my forever...u can check it out if u like
@@Greggee100 yeah I would like to check that out
K, Thanxs. I always like 2 know the Y of a storY. Nadina...really k name. like Cleopatra...k name 4 a cat. ;o)
Hey is there a part 2 of this??
You can see the actual doco it evolved into after I got in contact with the abc and we decided to do recreations. Have a look on UA-cam for “Killers in Eden”
Could be a tourist trap thing, could be legit.
A microbiologist told me they prefer livers, typically.
There are literally hundreds of photos and a century of recorded paper documentation and books and daily newspaper accounts during whaling season. There was no tourism industry at the time and the whaling ceased in 1930. The interaction with the orcas was recorded on movie film in 1910 by the twofold bay whalechase biograph syndicate and reviews by casual observers confirm all the anecdotal accounts. This is one of the most thoroughly documented historical animal human interaction scenarios that exists. Orcas have distinct cultures. saying they prefer livers is like saying humans prefer pho for breakfast. It applies to one specific culture only.
Yes, there’s a huge amount of solid evidence that these stories are at least substantially true. I’ve seen old Tom’s skeleton and rope wear to his teeth is clearly visible. And it’s certainly true that it’s the tongue of whales that Orcas want, a fact that’s been documented all round the world. When Orcas hunt sharks however, they do go for the livers. BTW, not sure why a microbiologist would be cited 😊
@@shavewithdave5339 - Yeah, silly in retrospect.
This guy was a walking google before google ever existed and for some reason I expect people to know.
I knew a logger and he said...
🤔
It seems if killer whales were super smart they would be trying to save the whales.
Why? They still need to feed themselves and have been living this way for millennia .
Legend says, there should be a very special Garden in Eden. The first humans lived there, until they received American passport numbered 1 and 2, and kicked out of the garden. Was that THERE?
I thought the garden of Eden was in Missouri 🙄
I just can't understand for the life of me why the killer's didn't take out the middleman
There seems more than meets the eye here
I think it was a case of efficiency, Killer whales can and do (those specialized in it, some groups have totally different hunting strategies and entirely different diets) hunt and kill whales on their own, however this often takes MANY hours where the whale has to be chased till it is exhausted and then finally drowned by preventing its blowhole from reaching the surface. Now if they figured out humans can do this for them, thus saving a LOT of effort and calories, then why not? they still got their prize since they got first pick (on the lips and tongue) which the humans didn't care about anyway. the only downside to this for the Killer whales is that they have to bring the whale to that specific bay and alert the humans, compared to chasing the whale for 6 hours at top speed that isn't so bad i guess.
@@tseuren123 I hundred percent agree with you assessment.. they're definitely does seem to be a genuine affection between the two hunting groups though' the black fellas must have nurtured that relationship for a long time to build that trust up.. it's just so awe inspiring, imagining that first whale and the first human..
@@tseuren123 That's correct. The orcas had likely been using that bay for thousands of years since the last ice age when the sea level was lower. It forms a refuge and natural trap for migrating whales travelling up Australia's east coast particularly when they have calves and typically other orcas hunt them far out to sea. This pod had specialised in trapping whales , particularly small minke whales in the small bays and reefs of twofold bay which is one of the largest deepwater harbours in Australia.
The Thaua/Yuin people had benefitted from this natural behaviour for vast amounts of time and had incorporated whales into their spiritualism/culture etc. Thus when employed by Europeans as whaling crew they already had a strong affinity and knowledge of orca behaviour and were able to influence the europeans.
The upshot was symbiosis... the commensalism variety where there is mutual benefit to both species. The europeans could hunt the whales with much less effort and at all hours of the day or night, the orcas could complete their hunts in fractions of the time expending far less energy and able to take on much larger prey such as full grown adults rather than small minke whales.
Thus both parties could take on much bigger prey and more often and with much more guaranteed success than either could by themselves.
@@gregmckeeswildthings9647wouldn’t “Yuin” be capitalized? Out of respect?
Blackfish 😭😭😭😭😭
Whale tounge sounds so delicious.
Rushaur
Lol i couldn't understand one word he said
Yeah I had to listen to the tape in a few places a few times to get what he was saying sometimes. But he was a real gentleman and always a delight to chat with. R.I.P.
It be nice if animals started attacking humans if they attack them. Level the playing grounds a little.
I cant freakin absorb this. This is like an ancient legend. Mate, i need to know more. where can i more? Can I meet these people? Can you show me mire? Don’t have any desire to write anything or put it on the internet and all that. But i wanna know more. For myself. At first i thought-this us nonsense, old wives tales. I thought: “Why wouldn’t the killers just kill whales themselves and get the tongue? Thats what they do - they're killer whales after all ! To be honest, im still confused about that bit. But these old folks aren’t actors. That bit about why didn’t the killers just kill the whales themselves, is one reason why Im craving to know more. And also- my other fascination is: what started all this? How dod the killers come to decide to help people get whales? Like, how could they possibly know they could get ‘whale tongues, etc? So, the stories are there with the old folks, so the beginning would have been told. Because the old blokes- (exactly like my father who was an Australian legend of a travelling carnival operator)- couldn’t help himself but tell the stories of his, and other showmen’s, lives. Id love to learn more. I cant get over this. It’s got depth and weight. It’s worth ten thousand sensational internet shows. I don’t know why youtube threw it my way. But I’m bloody glad. I’ve subscribed. Thanks very much, from Sooz in Melbourne
The killer whales had likely hunted whales at this stretch of the east coast for many thousands of years and usually they hunted small minke whales that they could drive into the bay which formed a natural no exit trap. They would also hunt larger whales but usually calves. They would drive the whales to shore and the local Thaua people, a part of the Yuin nation thought the Orca's were deliberately providing food for them and so developed a spiritual/kinship relationship with the Orcas calling them Beowas meaning "brothers". The orcas naturally ate whale tongues as it is about 1/4 the muscle mass of the whale , high quality protein with no bones and easy to access. People never fed the tongue to the orcas. The Orcas just took it themselves. When Europeans first tried bay whaling in twofold bay there were very few settlers so they tried to employ local Thaua people who tended to be skilled boatsmen, excellent observation skills , brilliant with a spear or harpoon and with a religious connection to the sea creatures and a great respect for them. In most parts of the world where Europeans hunted whales, and orcas were present they typically tried to drive the orcas away , fearing that the orcas would eat all the carcass and ruin their ability to extract the blubber to make oil. In Eden the Thaua had millenia of experience passed down by oral history knowing the Orcas only wanted the tongue. So the advice of the aboriginal boatmen was listened to mostly (not by all) and the orcas were not shooed away. The Davidson family in particular with the green boats were very respectful of the aboriginal advice and along with the native people developed the strongest relationship The situation became a huge mutual benefit to both species. For the Humans in rowboats, they expended far less energy chasing after whales and coralling them as the orcas could do that for them at motorboat speeds and wear them out and slow them down making it much easier to approach and harpoon them and later lance them. For the orcas, the humans had an amazing ability to dispatch the whales quickly with their metal implements of harpoons and lances, saving them the long duration of chases that occur in the wild that could take days before a whale was exhausted enough for the orcas to drown it. Orcas can't strangle a whale like the way a lion can quickly strangle a zebra etc so it is an exhausting slow process for them. For each party working together presented a huge improvement on the usual situation. ie symbiosis /commensalism in zoology terms. As we know Orcas are very fast learners and both parties adapted tactics to work together efficiently. It also enabled the orcas to take on adult whales rather than just calves of large species that they possibly would not have been game to take on previously. That meant they could get access to a huge adult tongue rather than just a calve's tongue. What is interesting is that each species of hunter treated the other as if they were their own type. The Humans gave the orcas human names, treated them with adoration as if part of their family, sent letters to relatives if one of them died or had a new calf etc and the orcas seemed to treat the humans with the privileges they give to their own kind, alerting them to hunts in progress and inviting them to join in, supporting them in the water if injured, hanging around their boats etc. We know from vets from Seaworld that orcas can easily identify and distinguish individual Humans apart and will favour some and not others so there is nothing about their behaviour in Eden that is inconsistent with scientifically proven and documented Orca behaviour.
Our finished ABC documentary with recreations turned out like this: ua-cam.com/video/nk_sDK0yLOk/v-deo.html
@@gregmckeeswildthings9647 Thanks heaps. Im off to check it out
It's mutually beneficial to both the folks involved as well as the orcas. The orcas got their piece of the whale (the only part they really care for anyways. To this day orcas will kill whales and only eat the tongue or sharks and only eat the liver) and the humans got the rest for oil for lamps and all the rest. It's sort of like what early humans did with wolves, the ancestors of modern dogs. Wolves learned they could live with humans, help with the hunting and tracking, and receive a meal in return as well as shelter and companionship. It's a similar process here and it probably took many generations for this partnership to form.
@@gregmckeeswildthings9647wow. Very well explained, buddy.