



In the “Killers in Eden” documentary Danielle refers to other orca skulls, specifically the monaco skull, as having the same pattern of tooth wear as Tom’s skull but on close inspection that proves not to be the case. The Monaco skull shows plenty of wear but has no feature at all resembling the deeply worn “rope” groove of Tom’s lower left tooth. If anyone can find an image of an orca skull with a smoothly worn groove similar to Tom’s then please contact the author at greg@mckeewildthings.com





Eden Fisherman Jackie Warren described in a video interview how Tom would grab the anchor line of Jack’s fishing boat from the sea bottom and tow him around for fun.

J.R. Logan’s daughter Margaret Brooks describes being on her father’s motor yacht towing a dead whale and Tom trying to stop the boat by holding the tow rope in his mouth. The teeth missing from the right hand side of his upper jaw were possibly lost as a result of this struggle.





Perhaps most extraordinary, a journal from the turn of the century describes: “Davidson threw a painter(anchor rope) over the bow of his boat. It was immediately grasped by two killers. They took the rope tandem fashion with a half hitch around the shoulder and started for the quarry, overtaking the opposition. They had in their mouths 60 fathoms of 2 inch coir rope.”



The stories of the killers actually towing the whaleboats out to a chase have been discouraged by the Davidsons in the fear that they might seem so fanciful to outsiders that they would throw doubt on other stories. Knowedge gained from captive cetaceans show that towing boats around is well within their capabilities and intellect . Aquarium performances regularly display small boats being towed around by dolphins.





On a number of occasions, Tom had swum around members of the boat crews who had been tipped overboard in accidents. The crews believed the orcas were protecting them from the large numbers of sharks that would follow the chases. The Davidsons were very fond of Tom and described him as “part of the family”.





For decades almost all aspects of the Eden story were treated with derision by uninformed skeptics.

The idea that the killers would not attack the humans was believed nonsensical as even 1970s US Navy diving manuals stated that orcas are ferocious and will attack and eat humans at every opportunity. In fact no human has ever been attacked and killed by a wild orca. Some historians claimed that Old Tom was a female, despite conclusive photographs to the contrary of his dorsal fin and genitalia, and the idea that Orcas could be recognised by sight and given names was ridiculed, even though it is now standard scientific practice for identifying individual wild orcas.