Man on Beach Attacked by Killer Whale-Fiction!
Summary of eRumor:
A forwarded video of a man walking on the beach who got attacked and eaten by a killer whale has gone viral on the World Wide Web.
The Truth:
The video is a digital manipulation, which was used in a television advertisement for La Sirena, a chain of retail stores in the Dominican Republic.
Some cleaver prankster edited the video and added a conversation on the beach complete with screams of terror as the man was dragged into the murky depths by a killer whale. The video was later taken down from YouTube.
https://youtu.be/Im9g8cUb7dE
Original video found on YouTube of TV ad for La Sirena
Orcas, or killer whales, are a large cousin of the dolphin and members of the cetacean species. They hunt and eat live creatures for food, mostly fish, seal and sea lions.
So, where do killer whales beach themselves to hunt?
It is very rare to see an orca hunt in this fashion unless you happen to be in South America. These mammals have been observed beaching themselves to catch their prey on the Peninsula Valdes, Patagonia, Argentina. One orca will quickly swim to the beach and land two-thirds of its massive close to six ton body on the sand at the same time catching a tasty and nutritious elephant seal or sea lion in its mouth. It will carefully maneuver itself back into the water without killing its prey in order to share it with the rest of the pod. This behavior was first discovered in 1975 and the Orca Project was founded to observe and study the behavior of these killer whales in their natural state. The hunting method is not without risk, however, as hundreds of killer whales have been know to die each year during their quest for food from dehydration due to exposure if they trap themselves on the beach.
updated 02/05/13