"Sporting the third deepest natural harbor in the southern hemisphere and a rich habitat, the waters around Eden, Australia, attract a variety of wildlife, including baleen whales and, at least in the fall and winter, orcas.

At some point in the history of the indigenous Yuin people, they and the killer whales seemingly entered into a tacit sort of unspoken agreement, which was called by later whalers the Law of the Tongue.

While most of the contemporary accounts of this “contract” have been lost, including very unfortunately a 1910 film that visually recorded the behavior, enough remain, along with some photographic evidence, to give us a general idea of how humans and a particular pod of orcas worked together to bring down baleen whales.

While little is known of when exactly this “agreement" came about, and how it may have differed for the Yuin people, after European hunters arrived in the mid-19th century, the provisions of the “contract” became clear – the killer whales would herd in and trap the baleen whales in Twofold Bay and the hunters would harpoon the whales. In return for their help, the humans would share certain parts of the bounty with the orcas.

How was this possible? Extremely intelligent, creative and social animals, killer whales often live in large, matriarchal, multi-generational pods. They also teach their offspring their sometimes incredibly clever hunting methods, passing the knowledge on from one generation to the next. Presumably at some point in this pod’s history, humans killing baleen whales near the harbor resulted in the orcas coming in for scraps; perhaps ultimately realizing that if they helped the humans out in their hunting, there would be more scraps, the orcas began driving the whales close to shore.

It is often stated that even as late as 1860, when Alexander Davidson and his family established a whaling station in Eden, Europeans still had not realized the orcas’ value, and that it was Davidson who learned what the orcas were doing when he hired Yuin fishermen who explained it to him. However, according to an account written in Sir Oswald Brierly’s diary some two decades earlier while he was managing a whaling operation in the area, he, at least, was well aware of the orcas’ propensity to drive the baleen whales in. He noted that while some whalers would fight the orcas away after killing a whale, others let them have their spoils and soon “aquire[d] preferential treatment” from the pod.

The Davidson family’s whaling business began to flourish thanks to the orcas. Beyond the Davidsons treating the orcas fairly, there are reports that the killer whales weren’t too keen on helping many other whalers still in the area owing to their eventual use of cannon harpoons and other such explosive weapons. In contrast, the Davidsons used hand thrown harpoons and took to revering the orcas as the natives did, through their actions supposedly earning the orcas’ trust.

Whatever the case, eventually, the system was refined, making the Davidson’s lives relatively easy. At the mouth of Eden’s Twofold Bay, the orca pod, like sheep dogs, would herd any baleen whales they encountered closer to the shore. After the whale was trapped in the harbor by the pod, a large male, for many years “Old Tom”, would break off and go present himself at the Davidson whaling station by spectacularly breaching the surface and thrashing his tale until he got the fishermen’s attention- letting the whaler know there was now a baleen in the harbor that needed killing."

--Melissa Blevins, www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2016/10/law-tongue-killer-whales-eden-australia/

"The Davidsons never used motor boats to catch whales. Only rowboats...no bomb-gun or harpoon was ever fired in Twofold Bay. The Davidsons avoided using explosive “bomb-guns” to catch whales because the concussive noise greatly distressed the killers and discouraged them from co-operating.

The Killers Decline
In 1900 the killer pack numbered over 15 individuals until a vagrant named Harry Silks knifed the killer Typee to death on Aslings beach. Other sources state the killer Jackson was killed. Immediately the killer pack left the bay for the remainder of the season and the following season only six returned. Whilst it has been suggested that the disappearance of the killers was a result of dwindling food supply, large scale hunting of eastern coast humpback populations did not actually occur untill the 1950s, a whole half century after Typee’s killing and the Eden pack spliting in two."

-- www.killersofeden.com

"The beginning of the end of cooperative hunting happened on a fall day in 1923. After Old Tom had corralled a small whale toward George Davidson, fearing a storm that was brewing, George decided to head straight back into shore without waiting to share the bounty with Tom. Old Tom disagreed, and the orca and the boat engaged in a tug-of-war, ending when Tom lost a number of teeth and released the rope. The daughter of John Logan, Margaret Brooks, who accompanied her father and Davidson on the boat for this occurrence, stated that upon seeing the damage done to Old Tom’s teeth, Davidson stated “Oh God, what have I done?”

Orca teeth do not grow back, and the holes left behind sometimes become infected. However, Old Tom actually lived another seven years, dying in September of 1930 of unknown causes.

As to Tom’s teeth, we do know that he was missing several upon his death, but given the number of years he lived after the alleged tug of war match, it’s safe to say he didn’t die as a result of it. It may well be that Old Tom simply died of old age related issues, as contemporary reports describe him as an elderly looking orca towards his end. Later examination of his remains seemed to indicate he was only in his mid-30s, but the method that was used in this case is known to be unreliable. (For reference, orcas can live upwards of 100 years in the wild, though more typically between 30-50 years; in captivity they only live about 20 years or so).
Whatever the case, after Tom’s death, the pod supposedly never returned to Twofold Bay, though it isn’t clear whether Tom’s death had anything to do with this change of behavior. Even by 1923, the orca pod to which Old Tom belonged seems to have shrunk dramatically in size, or at least only a few of the pod at this stage were seen in the harbor anymore. It was speculated that Norwegian whalers in the area had killed most of them over time, but whether this is true or not isn’t known.

By 1930, whether because the remaining members of the pod decided to stop visiting the harbor or whalers simply wiped them out, with no more of the pod around to drive whales in, Tom’s death more or less marked the end of the Davidsons being able to hunt whales in Twofold Bay via small row boats.

Gone but not forgotten, Old Tom’s body washed up on Eden’s shore, at which point locals saved his bones and built the Eden Killer Whale Museum to house them. If you’re in the area, you can still go see his remains today."

--Melissa Blevins, www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2016/10/law-tongue-killer-whales-eden-australia/

"The Davidsons would rarely catch more than 8 whales a year in their subsistence level operation and likely had minimal impact on whale numbers. They mostly only caught what the killer whales were hunting naturally.
By comparison, Tangalooma whaling station in Queensland took over 700 whales each year in the 1950s, devastating humback numbers at a much faster rate than they could possibly reproduce.
Modern day Japanese and Nordic whalers, in defiance of scientific and world opinion and ignoring a worldwide moratorium on commercial whaling, kill more whales in a single year than most Eden whalers took in a whole lifetime.
If you are interested in direct intervention against the poaching of whales, then you may wish to read about and support the Sea Shepherd Organisation. (www.seashepherd.org/)"

--www.killersofeden.com


Further reading:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killer_whales_of_Eden%2C_Australia

blogs.scientificamerican.com/running-ponies/the-legend-of-old-tom-and-the-gruesome-law-of-the-tongue/


Watch the Nova documentary:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=nk_sDK0yLOk