Orcas give gifts, but they want something back

These intelligent whales are offering presents. Here's what they're really after!

By Smartasaurus· 1 min read Curious

Imagine you're out on the water

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Gut call — how extreme does this actually get?

Reality tends to overshoot. Pick your ceiling.

The short version

These intelligent whales are offering presents. Here's what they're really after!
What makes it strange is that orcas don't need anything from us.
Off the coast of Norway one winter, an orca pushed a half-eaten herring towards a diver three times.

Wild orcas have started handing things to people. Dead fish, seabirds, a stingray, once a piece of liver. They swim up to boats and kayaks, drop the object, and wait.

A 2025 study in the Journal of Comparative Psychology catalogued 34 of these events from around the world — Norway, New Zealand, Patagonia, California. In nearly every case the orca stayed nearby afterwards, watching. If the human ignored the gift, the orca often picked it up and offered it again.

This behaviour has a name in animal cognition: cross-species food sharing. Orcas do it with each other constantly. Mothers feed older calves long after weaning. Adults share prey with unrelated pod members. They appear to be extending a deeply social habit to a species that isn't theirs.

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