The killer whale ( Orcinus orca ), also referred to as the orca whale or orca, and less commonly as the blackfish or grampus, is a toothed whale belonging to the oceanic dolphin family.

In the North Pacific, their common predators are the sea lion ( Eumetopias jubatus ), the killer whale ( Orcinus orca ), and the salmon shark ( Lamna ditropis ).

Joyce Tischler, of the Animal Legal Defense Fund, described keeping a six ton orca in Sea World s tanks as akin to keeping a human in a bathtub for his entire life.

David Phillips, director of the International Marine Mammal Project for the Earth Island Institute, which led the efforts to rehabilitate the orca Keiko made famous by the movie Free Willy said Orcas deserve a better fate than living in cramped pools.

In fact, most of the people studying bioluminescence today are focused on the chemistry, because these chemicals have proved so incredibly valuable for developing antibacterial agents, cancer fighting drugs, testing for the presence of life on Mars, detecting pollutants in our waters which is how we use it at ORCA.