Why Are Orcas Offering Us Food? Scientists Think They Know

When researcher Jared Towers set up his underwater cameras to watch a pair of killer whales, he witnessed something quite curious.

One of the orcas, a young female, swam right up to his camera and opened her mouth, releasing a dead seabird. She then just hung there in the water, seemingly waiting to see what would happen next. After floating there for a few seconds with the dead bird bobbing above her, she rolled around and swallowed it again.

A few years later, Towers saw another young female killer whale pull the exact same stunt – except this time, she dropped a freshly killed harbor seal pup right next to his boat.

When Towers started talking to other researchers around the world, he discovered something incredible: they'd all been getting food gifts from killer whales too.

After collecting all these weird encounters, he found 34 cases of killer whales bringing humans food between 2004 and 2024.