Orca tool use observed by researchers

Fahad Redha

June 25, 2025
3 min read

While primates, birds, and even elephants are known to make and use tools, this is much rarer among marine life. A team of whale experts, reporting in the Cell Press journal, Current Biology, have found widespread tool manufacture and use among resident orca or killer whales in the Salish Sea, between British Columbia and Washington in the Pacific Ocean. The animals fashioned tools out of kelp, using them for grooming.

“We found that southern resident killer whales regularly use lengths of bull kelp during social interactions, apparently as a tool to groom one another,” says Michael Weiss of the Center for Whale Research in Friday Harbor, WA. “To find that the whales were not just using but also manufacturing tools, and that these objects were being used in a way never before reported in marine mammals, was incredibly exciting.”

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Weiss and the team discovered the unexpected orca activity through aerial observations of the marine mammals. More specifically, they were observing the southern resident killer whales, a critically endangered population with fewer than 80 individuals known to live in the Pacific Northwest. They have been monitoring them since 2018, hoping to discover more about their foraging and social behaviour.

“While there are other killer whales around the world, the southern residents represent a genetically, ecologically, and culturally distinct population,” says Weiss.

Through the high-res footage from their aircraft, they fund that the whales where creating tools by breaking off the ends of bull kelp stalks, before pressing pieces of kelp against a partner and rolling it between their bodies for long periods.

This behaviour was observed among orca across all social groups, both sexes, and all ages. They found that they were more likely to groom closely related animals or similarly aged partners, also finding evidence that the animals with more dead skin were more likely to groom in this way, suggesting it served a hygienic purpose.

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