Should Divers Fear an Orca?

After we wrote in our March email that a pair of South African orcas had attacked 17 sharks to eat their livers, we received a query from reader Chuck Wilson, of Lincoln, Nebraska.

"Orcas are fascinating creatures, certainly beautiful and smart. They are voracious predators, attacking even great white sharks. My question is, are there any recorded orca attacks on scuba divers?"

Aside from captive orcas who have attacked people (can't say we blame them), we've never heard of an orca attacking a diver, and a web search came up with no instances of orcas in the wild killing humans.

To be sure, we contacted Amos Nachoum, the famed photographer who leads occasional trips to Norway to snorkel with and photograph orcas. (www.biganimals.com). He told us:

"Ben, thanks for reaching out on behalf of your reader. According to my experience diving with orcas in many parts of the world since 1992, I have not experienced any threat to one of my divers or me.

"I have not heard or know of any threat of attack to humans, with the exception of events in captivity."

Keep in mind that orcas are the largest member of the dolphin family. Ancient sailors called them "whale killers" because they occasionally do just that. The name later got flipped into "killer whale," and humans, perhaps the first tabloid publishers, began to think they were coming after us.