Just found out moose can dive as deep as 20 feet (6m) for aquatic vegetation. Can you imagine like, being a diver, and you’re 20 feet underwater, it’s murky, and you run into a moose
A
MOOSE!!!!
This is, by the way, one of the reasons that a regular predator of the moose is the orca whale.
For people confused in the notes:
Yes, this is a real phenomenon! It happens mostly off the coast of Alaska, where moose will swim quite far into the ocean to graze the relatively undistrurbed islands that dot the coast. It’s also been seen in Hudson bay, and off to coasts of Norway and Russia, and is well-described in Indgenous North American lore.
Orca (which yes, are techinically dolphins, forgive me the colloquialism) will expirimentally nibble on new and interesting objects they encounter, and by now most of the orca groups whose territory overlaps with Moose have figured out that they’re made of meat, which is great news for an animal that has to eat a couple hundred pounds of meat a day to survive!
Orca have also been known to take cattle in similar fashion, as well as:
Holding Great White and Salmon sharks out of the water until they suffocate, then just eat the fatty liver. This is probably less a hunting strategey than it is young male orcas ‘playing’
Follow fur seals around off the coast of south africa because sooner or later tasty Great White sharks will turn up. If sharks don’t arrive, they will use thier tails to bat the seals out of the water.
Follow cod-fishing boats off the coast of Alaska and wait for them to start pulling in the longlines (fishing lines up to half a mile long with hundreds of hooks to catch cod en masse- it’s a good way to catch cod and ONLY cod!) and then pick the cod off the line before the fishermen can get them in the boat. This is also done by Pilot and Sperm whales!
Use the sonic force of their echolocation to stun 6-foot long humboldt squid off the coast of california.
Create waves to knock seals off of ice floes in antartica
Bludgeon herring and salmon en masse with thier tails- seriously, the force of an orca’s tail is akin to being hit by a truck.
Swim at speed to launch themselves onto the beaches to hunt seals on land.
They’re brilliant and inventive animals!
There are videos of many of these hunting strategies on youtube, but be aware that many of them do show the violent nature of predation, and mind your health.
