By Jessica Ostfeld
Ever wonder how a whale named “killer” came to be loved by so many? Once targeted with machine guns by fishermen and the US military alike, the killer whale is now a symbol of pride and affection in the Pacific Northwest and beyond. The answer to how this happened lies in something many now condemn – captivity. Jason M. Colby’s Orca: How We Came to Know and Love the Ocean’s Greatest Predator explores how captivity, rooted in the Pacific Northwest, changed our understanding of and relationship with the powerful orca whale.
Colby’s story resonates with me. I remember going to Sea World in Southern California as a kid. My childish curiosity made me ripe with energy and affection for all of the animals at the park, but most of all Shamu, the orca whale. I remember trying to catch his eye across the crowd, looking for a connection. Reading this book sets that experience in a whole new context.
Colby starts by setting the scene. With elegant and simple prose, Colby introduces us to the inhabitants of the Old Northwest, lumberjacks and fishermen who relied on what the earth had to offer to feed their families. Here, killer whales were reviled and considered a threat to fish stocks and livelihoods. Fishermen would shoot at any orca they saw. The Canadian government even installed a machine gun off the coast of Vancouver Island to kill them off.
Then in the 1960s attitudes started to change. With nuance, Colby introduces us to the colorful cast of characters that hastened this transformation. We meet Paul Spong, a counterculture hippie biologist who first studied killer whales in captivity in 1967, but then became one of the most vocal critics of the industry. Then there’s Michael Bigg, regarded as the founder of the modern research of killer whales, but also the one who cut a painful notch in a killer whale’s dorsal fin for the sake of research.
But the heart of the book is Ted Griffin’s story. Griffin was a man who long dreamt of bonding with orcas and eventually succeeded in catching one. Not only was Namu the first orca to be displayed in captivity in Seattle, he also formed an indescribably deep bond with Griffin that swayed hearts and minds. Griffin was the first man to swim with an orca and even slept on his back from time to time. According to NOAA scientist Mark Keyes, “By the single act of going into the water with Namu, Ted Griffin contributed more to the conservation and appreciation of killer whales. . . than biologists and conservationists put together.”
The book is peppered with endearing stories of killer whales. We learn of a white killer whale who frequently bumped into the sides of her pool, unable to navigate her enclosure due to damaged echolocation. Researchers realized that she only survived in the wild because she had been cared for by her pod. We have learned that such compassion is far from unique amongst orcas. They will often share food with those unable to hunt. Colby also tells us of a captive orca who shared fish with a newly captured orca from a different pod in order to get her to eat. From this experience, researchers began to understand that different orca pods have different food cultures, some feeding on fish and others on marine mammals. Without the teachings of the other whale, she would have starved. Colby introduces us to the whales as individuals and as families, deepening the reader’s affection for them and showing the critical role captivity has played in understanding orca whales both scientifically and emotionally.
Colby also shows us that things are never as simple as they seem. Once lauded for capturing whales, Griffin became condemned. Namu died shortly after capture due to exposure to the polluted waters of the Puget Sound, and with him went a part of Ted Griffin. Still intent on sharing the beauty of orcas with the world, and with mounting interest in using the whales for display in oceanariums such as Sea World, Colby explains how Griffin and his crew came to corral over 80 whales in the Penn Cove Roundup of 1970. Though Griffin and his partners exercised restraint, taking only seven whales for captivity, five whales drowned during the violent operation that was easily in view of the public eye. Public opinion began to change. No longer was Griffin celebrated. Starting in the early 1970s, as environmental concerns and animal rights gained new attention, he and the capturing of killer whales became condemned.
As a Seattleite, this book captuers a history of the Pacific Northwest that is at risk of being forgotten. I know most of the places Colby speaks of, from Ivar’s Acres of Clams on the Seattle Waterfront to Sea World in SoCal. But many of the stories Colby relays were new. I didn’t know that the first captive orcas were captured in my backyard, that they had been displayed just down the hill from Pike Place Market, or even that orca whales were not always beloved but once hated. Learning this and knowing how dear the Southern Resident Orcas are to many in the Pacific Northwest, I was shocked.
Colby, however, brushes over one area much too briefly – the views of Pacific Northwest Indigenous groups. He takes only a few pages to describe the centuries-old relationships between orcas and the Indigenous groups of the Pacific Northwest. To be fair, he is careful to distinguish between the views of different tribes before capture, acknowledging that some feared and others loved the orca. Given their long-shared histories with orcas, and the cultural value the whales hold in native communities, one would expect Indigenous groups held opinions on capture. Yet Colby gives this little attention.
Despite this oversight, with the lives of Southern Resident Orcas threatened due to declining fish stocks and other human impacts, it may do us well to reflect on how far our understanding of orcas has come and the men (I say men because there were legitimately no women central to in this story) who got us here.
