Transmission mechanisms are social learnings. For whales, social learning means skills learned through teaching, imitation, emulation and experience. Just as a human parent would teach their child what to do or not to do, parental whales do the same. These teaching and knowledge are evidences to a whale's culture.
An oddity taught by a parent Orca whale to their young is the feeding technique called self-stranding hunting.
This technique is exactly how it sounds. It is when an orca will purposely go up onto the shore to catch a bite to eat. The young killer whale will watch it's mother diligently in the act, but is not allowed to actually catch the prey until it is approximately six years of age. Even then, the young whale is not left alone and is helped with the capture. Self-stranding hunting may literally strand the whales on the shoreline and therefore, could be called maladaptive behaviour, which will be discussed further in a future entry.
However, self-stranding hunting is a skill that strictly pertains to orca whales. It is a non-human teaching. Orcas also take part in many human teachings such as playing games, resting, and itching themselves and playing on rocks. It is thought that whales never sleep, so in order to regain their strength, they need to rest. But resting is a skill. When they are young, they stick as close to their mother and rest when she does. This is where they learn to stick to the surface and stick to the centre of the pod, when sleeping. When the young are all rested up, play is strongly encouraged. Games such as "Chase me Charlie" or lets roll over moms tail. These are energetic games that allow the young orca to swim rapidly, dive, surface, and splash around. All good techniques to improve their swimming skills.
Jim Maya
http://www.wdcs.org/submissions_bin/orcareport.pdf
http://whitelab.biology.dal.ca/lr/culture.pdf
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