Researcher discovers famous Eden killer whale's links to modern NZ orcas

Now, 93 years after his death, evolutionary biologists and a global research team led by PhD candidate Isabella Reeves at Flinders University and the Cetacean Research Centre, have traced Old Tom's genetic lineage revealing a connection with killer whales from across the Tasman Sea.

To collect DNA, researchers sprayed a bleach solution on the area to be sampled, to remove any contaminating DNA, and cleaned the surface with ethanol, before they drilled 0.5 grams of powder from a tooth on Old Tom's upper jaw and from inside the lower mandible using a hand-held Dremel.

Since Old Tom was was stored in a shed from the year of his death in 1930 until 1939, there was a potentially increased chance of DNA contamination and degradation, while Australia's hotter climate and UV exposure also resulted in the degradation of Tom's DNA.

Ms Reeves said the genomic sequences were then compared with a global dataset of mitochondrial and nuclear genomes which didn't find any direct descendants of Old Tom, but did discover he shared a common ancestor with orca from Australasia, the North Pacific, and North Atlantic Oceans, with the most similar connection to the modern-day killer whales of New Zealand.

Steven Holmes, a Thaua traditional custodian wrote the foreword for the research journal article published on October 12, 2023, and said beowas (killer whales) were considered to be brothers to the Thaua people.

"Our Dreamtime stories which connect us to the beowas, is that when a Thaua member dies, they are reincarnated as a beowa," Mr Holmes wrote.

"The beowas remained part of the Thaua, even after passing. The beowas would help the men by herding the other whales in the bay of Turembulerrer (Twofold Bay) for the whalers to kill."

Mr Holmes described how his ancestor, Budginbro, along with other Thaua, would swim with Old Tom, holding on to his dorsal fin, while Budginbro's father, a blind man, would walk along Aslings Beach singing and communicating with the beowas.

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"It was a strong friendship between these beowas, and my people," he shared.

Many of the killer whales were named after local whalers who had died, including Hooky, Humpy, Cooper, Typee, Jackson, Stranger, Big Ben, Young Ben, Kinscher, Jimmy, Sharkey, Charlie Adgery, Brierly, Albert, Youngster, Walker, Flukey, Big Jack, Little Jack, Skinner, and Montague.

Referred to as the killers of Eden, Old Tom, and his family would help whalers hunt their target of baleen whales, and were rewarded with the lips and tongues from whale carcasses, described as the "Law of the Tongue."

Ms Reeves said it was exciting to trace Old Tom's genetic ancestry, and reiterated the importance of recognising how Indigenous Australians initiated the relationship with killer whales before European colonisation and local whaling.

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