The image above shows Nakai's brutal injury which exposes his jaw bone. It was caused from an aggressive altercation with two other orcas, Keet and Ike.

 

Orcas are forced to live in tight quarters together. The resulting anxiety and tension cause fights between them. In the wild, orcas have strong social bonds that may last for life, their social rules prohibit serious violence against each other, and when fights do occur, they can find space to flee. The small space in the tanks, instead, leads to fights between the animals because a captive pod is a mixture of different social groups of orcas who don’t use the same vowel ranges and can't understand each other. In captivity they can’t escape as in the wild, where they have a vast natural space, and often mark and seriously rip the other members with their teeth.

This is one of the reasons why they are often isolated during long periods of time from other members using metal gates, a fact that reduces the space they have to (at least) move.

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One of the most famous incidents was the one between Kandu and Corky back in 1989, which ended up with the death of Kandu (see more in their stories).