Of Orcas and Men

by David Neiwert

  At the same time, scientists suddenly encountered T2a, who was found alone, hunting seabirds off the northern coast of Vancouver Island. He was seen a number of times over the next few years in the fjords of southeastern Alaska, the last time in 1988.

  Charlie Chin, meanwhile, continued to reappear with his mother’s pod from time to time. After T2 gave birth to another calf, designated T2c, over the winter of 1988-89, the big male returned to being a regular fixture of the pod. For several years, the four whales—T1, T2, T2b, and T2c—remained a stable unit and were even seen occasionally in the company of other transients, something that had not been common for them. However, in 1992, T2b began wandering off and was seen in the company of various other Bigg’s pods, and Charlie Chin shortly afterward simply disappeared again. It’s unknown whether he dispersed again or died, but the latter is suspected, as it has been so long since he was last seen.

  T2 and T2c remained a traveling unit for many more years, frequently appearing with other pods. They were occasionally rejoined by T2b; she has tended to associate with a couple of other Bigg’s pods in the ensuing years. T2 finally disappeared in 2011 and is now presumed dead, but her daughter, T2c, has had two calves and now has formed a pod of her own, currently comprising four whales. It is believed T2b has also given birth to a calf.

  All this is in striking contrast to the social organization of resident pods, in which rigidity tends to rule. There is some occasional interpod drifting, as when Cappucino picked up with a J pod family, but this usually arises out of unusual circumstances, such as the death of a mother. On one occasion, when one of the K pod’s matriarchs—Lummi (K7), a whale estimated to have been born in 1910—passed away in 2008, her own daughter, named Georgia (K11), believed to have been born in 1933, inherited the mantle as matriarch. Out of the blue, a strapping 16-year-old male from the L pod named Onyx (L87), whose own mother had died three years previously, “adopted” her, appearing as the elderly Georgia’s rather imposing male escort for her remaining years, until she died in 2010. Since then, Onyx has traveled exclusively with J pod whales. (Go figure.)

  Those, however, are the exceptions to the rule. Studies have consistently found that there is very little social drift among resident killer whales; once born into a family, they remain with it until they die. They are gregarious in their social dealings with other Southern Residents, but over the long term, they remain closely identified with their matriline. However, there is a generous quality to all this. What the exceptions tend to prove, in fact, is that while orca society is outwardly rigid, it is flexible enough to accommodate the special needs of members who undergo family hardships; resident whales who are orphaned never seem to want for a family they can call home.

  Again, this varies from population to population, generally depending on prey types. Mammal-eating orcas appear to tend toward more fluid matrilines and less social rigidity, while fish-eating populations tend toward lifelong familial bonds. Some populations, such as North Atlantic killer whales, seem to consume both kinds of prey and yet appear to trend more toward resident-like social rigidity. There are four identified types of Antarctic orcas, but all four appear to be flexible. However, most of these populations have been so little studied that, in fact, we know very little about their social organizations.

  ORCA CULTURE

  Two things really define orca culture: food and communication.

  It is natural that food would be central to the killer whales’ world. Unlike the great baleen whales, who are capable, without eating, of migrating thousands of miles on the blubber they carry and need only eat during key seasonal periods at their feeding grounds, killer whales have comparatively small fat stores and thus have a pretty near-constant need to eat. Their travels, their movements, even their sleep periods are determined by the need to eat; fish eaters go where the fish are, and mammal eaters go where the mammals (and seabirds) are.

  However, for all of these creatures, for fish and mammal eaters alike, hunting is done creatively and collectively. Even if an orca manages to capture and kill its prey by itself (notably among fish eaters), it is still common for it to share its meal with other members of its pod, particularly the young. However, just as often, orcas hunt cooperatively:

  Chasing Salmon: Resident salmon-eating orca have been observed apparently driving salmon into underwater cliff walls, confusing the fish and making them easy pickings, even for young orcas. Adults have been observed apparently training calves in hunting methods using this technique and then sharing the catch afterward. At other times, orcas will be observed chasing salmon toward their waiting comrades, all then sharing the catch.

  Herding Herring: North Atlantic killer whales have been observed herding herring into balls as a group, a technique called “carousel feeding.” After forming the balls, they slap the fish with their powerful flukes, stunning them and rendering them easy to scoop up by the mouthful, which the orcas then do with gusto.

  Pinniped (Seal) Prey: Bigg’s whales have been observed using a variety of cooperative techniques when hunting marine mammals such as sea lions and seals, often handing prey off to one another and then joining the feast at the end en masse. At times, seals have been observed diving and hiding in rocks to escape killer whales, so their pursuers will take turns waiting underwater for the seal to emerge from the rocks, one coming up for air while the other watches and waits, making it a simple chase when the seal itself finally has to emerge for a breath of air.

  Killing Whales: Other mammal-eating killer whales have been frequently observed acting like wolf packs when pursuing and killing humpback whales, spending hours chasing the whales, exhausting them by taking turns at harassing them, until one or two of them finally make the kill, and then all the members of the pursuing pod take part in the ensuing meal, sometimes for several days thereafter.

  Sting-Ray Teamwork: In New Zealand, killer whales who feed off sting rays living near shore have been observed hunting cooperatively to avoid being stung by their prey. One whale will grab the ray in its mouth and flip it over, rendering it immobile, at which point its partner will swoop in and make the kill. Both orcas then share in the meal.

  Beach Snatchers: Along the shores of the Valdes Peninsula in Argentina, killer whales hunt for young elephant seals by beaching themselves and snatching their prey off the shoreline. Adults have been observed teaching young orcas this technique by grabbing seals and releasing them near the juveniles so that they can practice the difficult work of capturing and killing the prey without the risky beaching maneuver.

  Ice-Floe Harmonics: Perhaps the most impressive bit of coordinated hunting, frequently replayed on wildlife programs, is that used by Antarctic orcas when working to force seals they are hunting off ice floes. They do this by lining up and swimming as a team directly at the floe, creating a large wave that then washes the seal off the ice and into their waiting jaws.

  Their food actually creates many of the defining lines of orca culture. Southern Resident killer whales, for instance, have been observed to be highly selective in their diets. In the summertime, it seems, they not only feed exclusively on Chinook, but appear to insist on eating only Chinook from the Fraser River in British Columbia. Samples taken from their foraging and excrement indicate that when the orcas are in the interior waters of the Salish Sea, they are only eating Fraser Chinook in spite of the presence of abundant Chinook from other watersheds.

  This is only one aspect of the broader “social exclusivity” that Lance Barrett-Lennard describes in orca populations and that may well be the driving force in the hardening of these broad-ranging ecotypes into disparate subspecies among the world’s orca populations. It is driven largely by what some orca observers call a kind of “cultural rigidity” that informs nearly every aspect of killer whales’ lives.

  “Orcas’ behavior is almost totally governed by cultural conditions and hardly at all by what we were taught in school about instincts and stimulus response and animal behavior in general,” says Howard Ga
rrett of the Orca Network, himself a trained sociologist. “It really depends on what they’ve learned and what they’re supposed to do, what is expected of them within their societies and cultures. This culture is handed down, passed down over the generations, and modified and developed over time.

  “But even if it means their demise, even if it means they starve, even if it means they become susceptible to capture teams—as we saw with the orcas at Penn Cove in 1970—they will maintain their absolute cohesion. And it is the same with the rest of their culture: their diet, association patterns, calls.”

  This latter is the communication component of orca societies. Each distinct population has its own “dialect,” its own set of stereotyped calls that it uses when communicating with fellow pod members. The immediate linguistic function of these calls is not entirely known, although in one study of the structure of the calls, it was concluded that many of the sequences of the calls relayed broad motivational information and that certain sub-classes of vocalizations apparently contain “more subtle information on emotional states during socializing.”

  However, there are also calls that killer whales use repeatedly in speaking to each other, the immediate function of which appears to be a kind of beacon, so that the whales know the precise location of each other while hunting and just traveling generally, although these calls also appear to contain information indicating pod identity. Some of these calls are used across the entire clan of Southern or Northern Residents, while others are specific to individual matrilines and appear to indicate those identities.

  Canadian whale scientist John K.B. Ford pioneered much of the study of orca dialects by studying the vocalizations of Northern Residents for many years. Ford established that certain resident dialect calls could indicate community identity, while others indicated individual pod identity, and that subtle changes in these intrapod calls often occurred over time. Even more important, these changes were transmitted not only within the individual pods but also across the broader Northern Resident community, establishing that cultural transmission occurred not only vertically, from mothers down to their offspring, but also horizontally, between disparate pods within the broader clan.

  As scientists Hal Whitehead and Luke Rendell explained in their definitive 2001 study, “The complex and stable vocal and behavioural cultures of sympatric groups of killer whales appear to have no parallel outside humans and represent an independent evolution of cultural faculties.”

  Of course, it is important not to draw conclusions that are too broad from the realization that killer whales have relatively sophisticated societies and a comparatively complex culture—compared, that is, to other animal societies. Compared to human society, on the other hand, it appears to be fairly simple. Similarly, the surface simplicity of the killer whales’ communications, as Justin Gregg would argue, does not appear to qualify these communications for the term “language” as we know it, since it is not clear at all that there is any great complexity to them.

  However, that is more a function of what we do not know about killer whales than of what we do know; what we know about their communications, as well as the large and complex brains behind them, certainly leaves open the possibility, if not the likelihood, that there is more going on there than meets the eye or ear.

  Likewise, orca culture, to all outward appearances (and compared to human culture), seems relatively simple and unsophisticated. However, it is worth remembering, too, that it is unique. While other animals—notably chimpanzees and other primates, as well as certain species of birds—exhibit a number of cultural traits, in no other animal, besides humans, are there such distinct, definable, and variable cultures as those that can be found among all killer whales.

  While we are at it, it is worth comparing human culture to orca culture, because the contrast is deeply revealing. “The most striking aspect of orca culture, to me, is the sheer absence of internal strife and the predominance of cooperation,” says Howard Garrett. “They have hierarchies of dominance, beginning with the matriarchs, but there’s no sign of discipline, there’s no jousting for position. You only see occasional scuff marks or rakes, mostly on young ones. But they don’t butt heads; they don’t beat each other up.

  “Then, one of the few universal behaviors that they have is that they do not harm humans. They are unique among apex predators that way. So it’s clear that even though they are capable of extreme forms of aggression—just ask their prey—the prevailing ethos of their culture keeps them from harming each other and from harming other life forms they choose not to eat. It’s actually a remarkable display of discipline and intelligence.

  “And to note that humans could learn from that is probably an understatement.”

  CHAPTER Five

  The Demon From Hell

  FOUR SISTERS ARE OUT WALKING ON THE BEACH. IT IS A ROCKY BEACH, still wet from the receded tide. There are barnacles everywhere, and the kelp pods crackle and pop beneath their feet as they amble through it. They look for oysters to collect in their cedar baskets. It is a clear summer morning, and the water is calm like glass. Suddenly the stillness is broken by the sound of a killer whale, the Max’inuxw, as it bursts above the surface—kooosh!—and sends its bushy plume skyward, where it lingers in the morning air. The sisters gasp and point.

  “The ancient ones!” they say. “A good omen! Look how beautiful!” The oldest sister is entranced. The pod of whales is led by a big male with a six-foot dorsal fin. Seeing that she is watching him closely, the orca approaches and sticks his head above the water, spyhopping.

  The male orca A-13, cruising the shore of northern Vancouver Island.

  “I am going to go talk to them!” she tells her sisters. “Perhaps they’ll give me a ride.”

  “No don’t!” they exclaim. “It’s dangerous!”

  “Pssshhh!” she replies and walks down to the water’s edge. She beckons to the big whale.

  “Mi’Max’inuxw, come on in. I want to take a ride!”

  The next thing she knows, he is there standing next to her on the beach—a large man with dark skin. He has a large canoe.

  “Do you know how to use this?” he asks her, gesturing to the canoe.

  “I am willing to try,” she answers, her chin out bravely.

  He pushes the canoe, with the sister, back into the water, and he becomes the whale again. Now he opens his mouth wide, wider than she has ever seen, and tells her to step in. She does. Inside him, it is a large space, and he tells her to go to the back and use the fins and flukes to steer. She does so, and they set out to sea, swimming and frolicking around the bay.

  They come back to shore and he opens his mouth wide again and she steps out, smiling broadly. “Amazing!” she tells her sisters, who are agape.

  The orca asks her: “What about your sisters? Would they like to try?”

  “No way!” cry the two middle sisters. “Nuh-uh! You wouldn’t catch me trying that!”

  But the youngest sister steps up and says she’d like to try. So the orca comes up to the shore and opens his vast mouth; she steps inside and goes to the back to work the fins and flukes. They sail out for a ride, splashing and laughing around the bay. The orca comes back in and opens his mouth again, and the youngest sister comes out laughing and giggling.

  “No one else?” the orca asks.

  The two middle sisters are still too frightened to try, but the oldest sister steps up and says: “Well, if they’re too scared, I’d like to go again!”

  So the orca opens his mouth; she steps inside and they swim off, but this time he does not come back.

  After a while, the three remaining sisters realize that the orca is not returning with their sister. They run back to the village and tell their father, the chief, what has happened. A search party is formed, and the whole village spends the next eight days searching for the missing princess. After many more days, they finally give up and mourn her as lost.

  A few weeks after this, the youngest sister is out by herself
collecting abalone in her cedar basket. Again she hears the sound of the Max’inuxw and turns to look, and there is her oldest sister standing on the shore. A piece of seaweed is draped across her brow.

  “Hello, little sister!”

  “Big sister! We have been so worried! We thought you were lost!”

  “Tell father and mother not to worry. I am married now to Mi’Max’inuxw.”

  “Are you all right? Are you happy?”

  “I am happy,” she says. “He is king under the sea.”

  With that, she returns to the water’s edge and climbs into the vast mouth of her husband, and they disappear under the sea. And that is the last she is ever seen—by humans, that is.

  • • •

  That is how the Kwakwaka’wakw tell it, anyway. There are several versions of this Northwest Coastal legend. In the telling of the S’klallam tribe, the princess Kakantu tells her sisters that she admires the whales: “That one has a handsome face,” she says, pointing to the king. “I wish he were my husband.” That night, her father is visited by the blackfish king in his human guise, and he bargains for the daughter’s hand in marriage, offering an ever-abundant supply of fish in exchange for her. A slave girl tries to substitute herself for the daughter but is caught and called out, and the daughter gladly goes to live with her new husband.

  The blackfish king brings his wife back to her village periodically to see her family, as he promised in his bargain with her father. However, after a few of these visits, her mother notices the seaweed growing from Kakantu’s hair and the pallor of her face and tells her not to come back: “You’ve become a supernatural thing,” she says, “so whenever it was to be that you go, then go!”