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Doug Bertran, a filmmaker who made Orca Killing School, told a story after the showing at the Wild and Scenic Film Festival in Nevada City. This is the film about which the program cautions, “Warning: violent animal scenes.”

He was at Peninsula Valdez, Argentina, filming some orcas who've perfected a trick of lurking offshore at high tide and then suddenly shooting up onto the beach to grab a sea lion. In order to take the sea lions by surprise, the orcas don't echolocate (which creates tell-tale clicking sounds). They rely on hearing to detect their prey. Bertran's assistant was setting up a heavy piece of photographic equipment in the shallows. It occurred to no one that the sound of the eighty-pound device scraping against the beach pebbles might be a lot like the sound of a tasty sea lion pup scraping against the beach pebbles. Suddenly the assistant looked up into the faces of five orcas. They'd hurtled up for a look.

After viewing him, the orcas hurled themselves back into deeper water.

“I shot it,” said Bertran happily. It wasn't in the film, though. Is it because the sight of a photographer's assistant not being eaten lacks drama? No, according to an interview Bertran gave to The Union, it's because local authorities don't want ecotourists to get ideas.