We could probably learn something from orcas, if we knew how. No; not to carry our dead offspring with us for days, but how to address survival on our planet in the face of all of the environmental insults that humanity has caused and is still causing to our only home, and their only home.
15
Orcas are another proverbial canary in the coal mine.
30
I was 15?in the summer of 1957, piloting our 17’ uniflight with its 65 hp Scott Atwater engine at its maximum hull speed of 35 mph in the San Juan Islands. My father was sitting next to the tool box next to our engine. Mom and brother and three sisters sitting around the boat.
Suddenly 20’ in front of me a large Orcas surfaced and up between his eyes we went, as up a ski jump, then landed behind his body.
The ~20-30 orcas pod circled closer and closer. (The week before that pod had smashed in the front hull of a cabin cruiser near where we were.
Dad had been an Eagle Scout and so every time we went out he rehearsed flipping that heavy engine up, unscrewing the 4-5 inch diameter cap, removing the cotter pin and replacing it, bending the pin, screwing back on the cap, and lowering the engine.
Every time before we left the launch. He said cotter puns are usually sheared by sunken logs just below the surface and often in swift flowing tides that leave little time to be without power. His fastest total time was two minutes and seconds.
My jock and coach mother always timed him. This time it was 30 seconds! Engine started instantly and back to 35 mph in moments, shooting the gaps between the encircling pod.
I am still haunted by the widely spaced, large, surprised eyes of that orcas. I hope he survived ok. I doubt it. There was no question of high intelligence.
(That hull was so stable that it enlarged became the hull of the swift boats in Nam that I often was carried on
7
Good luck to us all, with republicans and the likes of (the former) Pruitt in charge.
Hyperbole? I think not.
21
I didn't see a mention (I might have missed it) of Carl Safina's "Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel"--A New York Times best seller--, so here it is. Well worth reading, IMHO.
6
God, this is sad. But informative, so thank you.
18
Not only do we underestimate the emotions of much of the animal kingdom, but clearly their intelligence as well. Recent literature makes the argument that animals have certain areas of intelligence that are superior to humans. And yet we ruin or destroy their natural habitats until the time comes when we bullies make them extinct. The unfortunate road these orcas seem fated to travel.
I am struck by the timing of this piece with your magazine's singular focus of how humankind has so egregiously ruined the planet. Hope springs eternal but if each of us do not take a degree of personal responsibility our descendants will be doomed like Tahlequah's calf.
11
Ok, so there are some parts here to this article- but that twerking piglet! Giving me life!
2
The mother is grieving; her child is dead and we humans, do to the rampant increase in global warming, are to blame. Let her grieve and let us take note that our actions are killing the planet.
23
Yes, it is very sad to hear about the dead calf and it is inspiring to see a mother's love.
It is also important to reinforce the fact that longitudinal research shows that bereavement is associated with many long term negative outcomes in humans and elephants.
Unfortunately, Puget Sound is suffering from much more than the death of an Orca.
We have one of the worst governments anywhere in America. It is horrible. Seattle is not a large city, yet we have the third highest rate of homelessness and some are also addicts. They are living in many places in the city. Many people have experienced property crime. The city is encouraging to move here by doing nothing about it.
This has always been an ineffectual place. It has had two things going for it: 1) it is drop dead gorgeous and 2) we have no humidity, so when it is hot, it is mostly a dry heat and we do not get too hot.
That is it. Those two things, nothing else.
Poor architecture, overpriced restaurants, people who will never tell you what they really think, smugness, etc.
Worst of all, this place has horrible government, run by people who do not understand how to project policy.
Our transportation system is disgusting. I would take the NYC Subways any day over this place.
Sorry about the Orca, but do not give Seattle credit for anything.
8
We have killed this beautiful planet plain and simple and we have to kidding ourselves if we think we can reverse this. It’s difficult to pinpoint when it all went awry. Maybe it was the invention of the wheel or the internal combustion engine but at some point humans infested this planet by breeding prodigiously and taking what ever they wanted until there was nothing but crumbs left to fight over.
24
Not far from the US-Canadian border in Niagara Falls, Ontario exists - I will not say "lives", because she is not living - an orca named Kiska. She lost her pod when she was captured in Iceland nearly forty years ago and brought to Marineland to amuse people who believe seeing a captive orca performing tricks, in what amounts to a fishbowl, is amusing.
All five of the calves Kiska birthed in captivity are dead. The longest any of them survived was six years. This profoundly social animal with the same maternal emotions as Tahlequah has grieved five times in Marineland's quest to produce more "amusing" and money-making orcas.
Today, Kiska has the distinction of being Canada's last captive orca, living in social isolation contrary to the OSPCA Act's Standards of Care. She's "retired" from performing and can be found swimming in endless circles or, at times, lolling in her tank so lifeless she appears dead. Her teeth are broken off and are irrigated daily.
In 2015 Ontario passed Bill 80, banning the acquisition, breeding and possession of orcas but excluded Kiska. Years of campaigning by groups seeking to move Kiska to a better facility where she'd be with her own kind, or to a sea pen, have so far failed.
Kiska still lolls, alone, at Marineland. One can only imagine the emotions this sensitive, intelligent and emotionally complex being feels, bereft of her pod and calves. Or maybe Kiska is numbed by now from her tragic life.
A plea: please don't visit marine parks.
39
What to tell the grandchildren.
Our human species too is going to end in another 25 years.
We just have 1% left to redeem the preexisting life.
Now or never.
And how uncouth the human existence is, we drag the other species along with us.
The Mother carrying her dead infant, is a warning that we too will have similar fate, not in terms of the children, but our own fate hanging in dread.
10
I live right near where these Southern Resident Killer Whales (the population that this female belongs to) were repeatedly rounded up in the 60s and early 70s. They would be held in net pens and the babies taken from their mothers and shipped off to marine parks. Many adult orcas died during these hunts. The reproductive rate of such a long-lived animal is so low that the population has yet to recover and has dropped from about 100 animals to only about 75 in the last couple of years. This is a distinct population or subspecies (possibly species) that has its own culture. Each individual in the population has been identifiable since the 1970s, scientists and orca fans can tell from a photo or sighting what orca it is and know all of its family ties and relationships.
Two recent mortalities in this population were estimated to be almost 100 years old. Imagine an unbroken culture that has lasted thousands of years--that is what we will lose. It is a unique and glorious gift for people to go out whale watching and see these amazing beings in person leaping clear of the water, etc. I guess I am going to have to accept that they will likely be gone before I am :( But I can't accept it.
One of the family members is Lolita, a female captured in the 1970s here in the Puget Sound. She is held captive in Florida in the smallest pool of any orca in captivity. She has been forced to perform tricks non-stop for over 40 years. Alone. Please google Lolita retirement to see her story.
22
Now that we all agree that it's too late to do anything about climate change maybe we can start putting some of that energy and money into conservation.
For thousands of years humans have had a profound effect on the world around us. There are countless examples of careful, thoughtful behaviors that allowed room for us and for the wildlife. We don't have to wreak a thousand acres for every 200 acre housing development. We don't need to pave over everything. And we certainly don't need all that plastic.
These behaviors have always been known as "husbandry". We're gonna need a new word.
3
As with all articles about the loss of ocean creatures because of overfishing and pollution, I'm still waiting for the word, overpopulation. Why is there no more salmon? Why is there a Pacific Garbage Patch the size of France, with 45% of it ghost nets, or discarded fishing nets? Why are animals going extinct?
The human population was relatively stagnant for tens of thousands of years. One billion. Since the Industrial Revolution, we've swelled to 7.6 billion. We are in a sixth extinction event because of mankind.
Melinda Gates knows to get birth control to poor women to save animals like the Orca.
Only 75 Resident orcas left? Where is the outrage? Where is birth control?
17
Oh, no, we must not allow animals to have emotions like ours. We might become uneasy eating them.
10
What we all fail to realize if that if the orcas are gone we may not experience the luxury of telling tales to our children because I firmly believe that our destinies are linked. They are the harbingers of the oceans and tell us about the state of the ocean’s health overall, hence our food chain.
Not all that long ago I took a whale watching trip out of Victoria BC. Through some miraculous confluence of events we ended up in a super pod of resident whales: J,K and L pods had come together and we were all silent and solemn as they breached an played around us. At that time there were 89 overall. It was a religious experience and many of us, who love these beautiful beings completely, were in tears.
We are all responsible for their safety and well-being, and this begins at the highest level of governments. The need to transport oil though fragile straits where these whales reside, the need to use sonar and other devices that hamper this communications systems, the need to use the oceans as
A dumping ground will ultimately lead not only to the extinctionof beings like the orcas, but to ourselves as well.
10
All I can tell you about this is I believe my own very good mother would have acted in much the same way for me.
5
The notion of anthropomorphism, which most of us instinctively reject when we witness the emotional lives of other species, is rooted in the Abrahamist religions' precept that humankind is separate from all other creatures because we were created by God in his image. In other words, it is based on a lie and it gave scientists an easy out when their observations forced them to confront that lie. It is a 19th century construct that has no place in the 21st century.
Now that it is obvious that we humans are going to go right on destroying our planet along with all the apex species on land and in the water, we will over the next few decades be confronted with many more heart-rending examples of the consequences of our rapacious greed. We won’t have anthropomorphism to hide behind any more. The only consolation we can take is a bitter one — that what is happening to the orcas will eventually happen to us. Or at least, to those of us who can’t afford getaways to New Zealand.
11
Thank you for the story and the information. Grief is grief and I believe most species with higher cognitive and emotional abilities experience it. I’ve witnessed dogs and horses grieve at the absence of a long time companion, both human and of their own species. I certainly grieve at the loss of a beloved animal friend/child! Their presence is greater than their mass. It’s their personhood I miss not their fur, hide, or tails, though those are all missed as well! Just as I miss my Mother for all the person she was but I also miss her deep brown eyes and long, boney fingers that could tickle or soothe like no others.
7
I ask that readers read the last paragraph a second. This is a call for action, isn't it? How do we have this dialogue on a national and international scale? How do we get companies to engage when it seems most are worried about their shareholders. The current culture is one where Facebook, Twitter, Netflix and similar all absorbing pastimes (wasters of time) dominate our shrinking attention span. How do we get ads on tv or cable about these issues so that families can have a dialogue. We need to commit some of our time to writing letters separately and collectively and not on those other pastimes. It's hard, it's not easy, it's necessary for survival of what makes the world a great place.
8
@Diane We need to get money out of political campaigns if we are to influence the behavior of corporations because, as of now, they have purchased our politicians and do their bidding. Politicians are only allowed to act within the parameters set by their donors. Support candidates that don't take corporate contributions.
4
I feel like I should read all 229 comments so as not to duplicate observations already made many times. But, that's not going to happen. Anyone who has co-habitated with a dog or cat knows that we're not anthropomorphizing when we judge the Orca mom to be grieving. Are we also projecting when one of our beasts jumps up and down and spins in circles when its food is ready and we see that as happiness? Or when, if we care for two beasts and one of them dies, the other seems sad and depressed? ALL the anecdotal evidence seems to point in the opposite direction - that the affective experiences we share with the beasts are greater than we're led to believe by our culture, not less than.
16
Given the intelligence of Orcas, and their awareness of humans and humanity, perhaps J35 continues to carry her dead calf in an attempt to communicate with humans--a distress signal, call for help for her community, to show humans what they've wrought for her kind and pod.
Whether intended that way or not, what's she doing is bringing significant attention to the plight of her pod and species. If intentional, it is a demonstration of very high intelligence.
19
We in Victoria, B.C. claim her as our own. As a member of our dwindling"Southern Resident" orcas we have followed her closely and watched her grieving with heavy hearts as our newscasts update us frequently on her condition.
It is feared she will starve along with another young female in the same pod who has been observed on the brink of death, swimming along side her. J35 cannot feed while carrying her baby and there is currently a great a lack of salmon (salmon cannot spawn due to low river levels caused by lack of rain). They are victims of climate change , making it more unconscionable to me that my PM Justin Trudeau, has committed billions of our tax dollars to support the tar sands and build the pipeline which will surely be the nail in the coffin for our cherished pod. It will hugely increase the tanker traffic in their territory and if the ships don't kill them outright, the effects of global warming caused by the continued use of fossil fuels surely will.
27
Mankind has always assumed it was the most intelligent species on this planet. We measure “intelligence” by this size of our brains as well as what we’ve built and accomplished. But what if that wasn’t the true measure of intelligence. What if a different measure were applied? One that wasn’t so human-centric. Humans have always had a complete disregard for the other species inhabiting our world. It almost amounts to inter-species racism of sorts. Only when mankind can fully understand the inherent value to all the inhabitants of this planet, will we then understand how precious and deserving of life they all are.
7
Just as smartphone-addicted humanity ismoving away from empathy, this amazing mother mourns her offspring and we are taken aback. This hits a reset button in our souls to see orcas, like other sea mammals and elephants mourn the dead.
This reminds me of those parents among us who lose a child and never really get past that shock. All we can do is hope and pray for them.
And there's nothing wrong with praying for Talequah and other more cerebral species who clearly react to the loss of their offspring and herdmates.
9
We watch as the grey whales swim North with their calves each Spring and send out wishes for safe passage knowing that Orcas are waiting in Monterey Bay to eat the little ones. Orcas use a gang approach to separate the cow from her calf. Like humans these creatures are capable of both tenderness and extreme brutality. Makes me wonder if some Orcas have a conscience and some do not. Even more mystifying is how so many humans have no conscience or respect for Earth and her ecosystems. Human greed is the most destructive force on this planet.
9
Regardless of our personal virtues, like being a vegan or riding a bike to work, collectively Americans are the devourers of life on this beautiful planet that nourished us to life. Statistically each one of us gobbles 100 times more energy than we need to live, and our unending gluttony has lasted for more than a generation now.
If we were to metabolize this amount of energy, each one of us would be a 50 ton, 50 ft long male sperm whale. Female sperm whales are half the size of males. Not so in humans.
So imagine yourself as a 5 story-high giant trampling the planet. Less than one million of sperm whales roam the Earth’s oceans, but there are 330 million Americans, who want more economic growth.
Guess what damage to the planet you and I do?
14
There are three organizations worth supporting, all located in Friday Harbor, in the sea between Washington and Vancouver, BC.
The University of Washington Friday Harbor Laboratories at https://fhl.uw.edu
The Whale Museum at whalemuseum.org
The Center for Whale Research at whaleresearch.com
The center and the museum may not receive the amount of funding necessary to appear on Charity Navigator.
7
Sorry, I'm not mourning. This is just nature in action. If every newborn that died and broke it's mother's heart had a write-up on the front page of the NYT, there would be no room for other news and problems that are much bigger.
This is the first birth in this pod in three years. The low birth rate is symptomatic of the dying orca population in this area—This is due to noise pollution from shipping lanes and tourism, and declining salmon populations. Have you ever observed an orca pod in the wild? I grew up watching this pod from island beaches—they’re beautiful. We’re on track to lose them. It’s not nature, it’s us.
30
This is not “nature in action.” According to the article and other studies, the orca calves are not surviving due to toxic waters and malnutrition. Both of these conditions are caused by humans and have nothing to do with natural causes.
17
I thought I felt bad for the orcas, but it’s you who really makes me sad.
13
Any aficionado of Nature flicks knows that mother chimp who carried around her dead baby for days, either unable to understand the baby was dead or unwilling to accept it.
Readers of "The Soul of an Octopus" or "The Intelligence of Birds" or "Are we Smart Enough to know How Smart Animals Are?" will know that sentient beings are, well, sentient.
Any dog owner knows animals have emotions, loyalties, and all signs of "love."
What you do with that information is the question.
Personally, I still eat salmon. They are suicidal, so I don't feel badly eating them a few days short of their final rendez-vous with oblivion.
2
If only some of the people writing here had as much empathy for their fellow human beings as they do for Orca. Based on what many of them write, they don't. This reminds me of a classic description of a certain type of progressive: He loves Humanity but hates people.
2
People are crowding out all other forms of life in the planet, a planet we inherited along with many other forms of life, life that is conscious and that feels emotions, just like we do. We don’t necessarily hate humans just because we recognize that we are actually destroying other forms of life on earth. There are only 75 orcas left, entirely due to human activities. That is just a fact to acknowledge and try to fix.
15
I think this is incredibly sad. And I am making an effort to forego plastic -- with that, I notice that disposal plastic bags, bottles, containers, forks, spoons, cups, etc. are almost impossible to avoid. It takes planning and thought to live with a minimum of plastic. I am mourning the poor whales, but if I continue to use disposable plastic I am a hypocrite.
14
"We have met the enemy and it is us." :(
13
A minority of humans are missing the empathy part of the brain, or it has atrophied. They always gravitate to a certain political party.
They take perverse pleasure from cat calling those who care for the environment, "Tree Huggers". Yet from empathy springs life, from callous indifference, greed, suffering and death.
14
If this mother's grief is of any interest in showing compassion, if not justice, then lets leave some food for Orcas as well. If poverty is a creation of capitalistic societies, then Orca's hunger is fishermen's greed.
6
One day, perhaps sooner than we think, some super intelligent being in space will observe: "awww, look the last of that human family is foraging for water in the planet they themselves over-heated. Now the only remnants left of that semi stupid species are these red items with MAGA on them..."
9
At no time in recent memory (I'm 72), has the environment been under such an aggressive political threat. The EPA is controlled by climate change deniers and the current administration is proposing a catastrophic weakening of emission standards. Ignorance, human greed, and the insufferable self-righteousness of the environmental movement make this possible.
We need to wake up to this existential threat to our planet and vote the Know Nothings out of government --- and environmentalists need to get off their high horses and argue with facts, not not with contempt. The planet is resilient, but not unbreakable. We are rapidly reaching the point of no return. The United States appears to be the only major industrialized nation that ignores the risks.
14
If Susan Casey is half right, that this is about caring or empathy, she's pointing out the glaring poor character, inability to put things in perspective and hypocrisy of humans. Why not use some street sense and realize that is about self-entertainment, whatever little bits of brain "are related to" getting a little jolly rush. Being moved by a shot lion, just like going after the dentist as this home, is mob behavior under the aegis of entertainment not caring.
We know media gets into this stuff for the $$, the clicks, the advert possibilities. And we know Youtube vids of Orcas biting cute seals in half get as many views as the dead carcass carrying variety. We also know the F-35 fighter jet we collectively agree to be taxed to pay for costs at least $1,100,000,000,000.00 (1.1 $trillion) and is unlikely to do anything humanitarian.
In this crazed storm of human choices, where oceanographers have a hand out, I say we just give them some money without forcing them to embarrass us by telling us how nice we are.
2
Thank you for giving me something else to grieve over this morning, besides the current destruction of our country by a certain group of treasonous thugs currently occupying the White House and dismantling our freedoms. Your deeply moving piece reminds me of some of the passions I had time for previously, before our current national political emergency.
7
The mother's unbearable sorrow shows the world how inhumane certain humans are.
Yes, Look what they have done to her daughter.
6
Greed. Selfishness. Fear.
Under everything, these three. Greed or the love of money above all else is a great evil. Those who are in power lie in order to manipulate others so they can remain in power and have more power. Why? To have more money, even when they are already incredibly wealthy in terms of financial worth. This is a mental illness.
How do you teach someone to love the planet or it's non-human inhabitants? How do you teach someone to care about something beyond their own personal survival? How do you illuminate the connectedness of the entire planet: all peoples in all places and the air, water, land and sea? What do you say to those who proudly declaim: I don't care or, worse, fake news?
Every human being should care about other people and the whole planet. Every person is entitled to be "comfortable" in terms of wealth, as it is not inherently bad to be "rich." Every person should understand that the welfare of one is the welfare of all and that leaving anyone or anything out is self-destructive. So many do not comprehend this or, comprehending, choose clearly to not care. Evil.
If only the whales were the one species in trouble. The administration wants to get rid of the Endangered Species act so oil companies can carve up the Arctic Refuge. Kill the EPA, give money to billionaires by stealing SS and Medicare. Still, the "base" cheers Trump. Sadly, there is no cure for stupid. The whales aren't the only casualty of true evil. We all are.
11
If anyone doubts the intelligence and social communication abilities of the Orca, the 2011 documentary about Luna, a young Orca whale that became separated from the same pod that Tahlequa, J35, is from, will lay those doubts to rest. Luna was a beautiful inquisitive and intelligent Orca that amazed all who saw her and tried to help her rejoin the pod. You can stream this wonderful documentary https://play.google.com/store/movies/details/The_Whale?id=z5YrSAWRS5A, or read the companion book https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Lost_Whale.html?id=YP810xjl2NQC...
The epic tragedy unfolding off the coast of Washington and British Columbia is man-made. Please join the effort to repair the Orca’s habitat and natural food supply at https://damsense.org/
5
What if this orca is carrying her calf aloft not for herself but for us. What if this is an ‘in your face’ moment for a killer whale? What if she knows her own purpose, and what if that purpose is to show the world her dead baby? What if what if what if. The cynics and the scientists scoff, but what if this is something more than our puny brains and massive egos can contend with? What if she’s saying see what you’ve done you stupid humans? What if.
9
Ask not for whom the Bell tolls
It tolls for Thee......
I suspect homo sapiens are an endangered species that was brought down by hubris.
7
I am getting more despondent and would like some guidance beyond writing letters to Congress (like writing a letter to Jim Inhofe would do any good.) We have a president who just lifted the ban on a pesticide that kills honeybees. Trump shrinks public lands, champions fuels that cause global warming, and pretends that climate change is a hoax. I live in a small town in Oklahoma and I can't even talk to anybody about my feelings. Just yesterday at a garage sale, two people started praising the great job Trump is doing. I can't escape it here. Where do I go with my concerns? For thinking people, the world will be so lonely when the animals are gone.
17
Some prime chinook salmon habitat could be restored by breaching 4 of the Snake River Dams. The dams only provide about 1/5 of the SURPLUS power produced by the system. There are more cost efficient options for power. It is our last chance to save the Orcas and it must happen ASAP.
13
It would help if science could explain what life is. All they can come up with are characteristics, like the ability to reproduce. The older I get, the more I
feel connected with all forms of living things. If life is truly a spiritual thing, a piece of God if you will, then that would explain why I recently rescued a spider ( and I fear all spiders ) from drowning in a bucket of water. Just for a moment I felt like that spider and I were together in this world, joined together by some common bond.
12
"If we aren’t willing to turn our empathy into action, then one day in the near future we will explain to our children and grandchildren how incredible the orcas were, and how bad we felt about their fate."
No we won't be explaining that to our children and grandchildren, because we humans aren't just degrading the orca's environment, we are also degrading our own. Hence the fertility drop off which has occurred in our own species, most likely as a result of man-made contaminants in OUR environment. The sovereigns of both land (us) and sea (Orca's) will be paying the same price eventually. They're just going first.
14
@No big deal, Orcas are at the top of the food chain. We are next.
1
Some efforts are being made to create quieter and cleaner watercraft. See this article:
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/16/pure-watercraft-makes-nearly-silent-elec...
It would also be good if there were some old-fashioned whale watching ships powered by good old human muscle.
After all, the humans could use the jobs, and the whales could use the quiet!
7
"They call this anthropomorphism... "
The issue is not anthropomorphism, it is teleology, or teleological, which "(gives) reason or explanation for something in function of its end, purpose, or goal... ". Whereas anthropomorphism assigns "attribution of human characteristics or behavior to a god, animal, or object.", teleology undermines the surety that there is, say god, or purpose to some assumed end. Teleology is a powerful rebuttal that, say a god, exists, is omnipotent and guides all humans, or other animals, in life. Furthermore the notion of 'purpose or goal' violates a basic precept of Evolutionary Biology, that evolution of species is not guided by goal or purpose, rather the vagaries of the environment does, and its influence on evolution. Richard Dawkins placed a universe without purpose in the title of a book "The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe without Design".
1
Excellent article, and I hope it resonates and motivates your readers. Recently, my family went on a whale watching tour in the San Juans, which in and of itself (marine noise) is most likely affecting the Orca population. However, it was educational and the captain kept his distance from the pod we were successfully able to follow. I was dismayed to hear how precipitously their food supply has dropped, particularly with regard to salmon. They are simply being over-fished in these waters. (The populations of other animals the Orcas feed on are dwindling, as well.)
When asked what we could do, the staff replied that we stop eating Chinook/King salmon, and when we could, to ask restaurants to stop placing these items on the menu. It was something simple, but something I had never thought about, and I care deeply for our environment.
It feels as though we are at a tipping point with many of the most beautiful animals on earth. I hope people will heed your comments and those of scientists and take positive steps so we can preserve these amazing animals for future generations.
15
Stop eating seafood. Period. Spread the word.
Eveything we eat from the oceans takes it away from the food chain. If we continue to consume the enormous quantities of life in all forms from the seas, and add warming water to that, the oceans will be dry as the Sahara by the turn of the century.
For every baby orca that gets a mention in the NYT, there is probably a thousand species going extinct as we speak.
13
I am nearly 82 years in good health & of course I know my end will really happen. I will leave behind an excellent daughter & two great grandkids. I am not religious so, of course I fear nothingness.
But what world am I leaving my loved ones to enjoy as I have ;a world that is dying. The things that I love so much nature & the animals that inhabit it, the oceans, the orcas, dolphins , elephants, birds, all going, going gone.
Please, Susan give us concrete actions to take that may actual avert the disaster we are facing. Standing up and yelling will not work.
17
I thought the same thing. Humans have long believed we are the pinnacle of evolution, because of the way we reshape our world to suit our transient desires. Are brains must be superior, we reason, because of our cities, our communication methods, our seeming control of our destinies. Yet is is ever more clear that what we believe makes us great is rapidly destroying not just other species habitats, but our own. This Orca’s tour de force may be the desperate warning from the most evolved species to their monkey cousins to “Look what you have done, it may be too late for us, but if we go, you cannot be far behind”.
10
Thanks to the author for not referring to the Orca's calf as "daughter" or "baby" or "child." These are anthropomorphisms I've seen in these pages before.
If this story moves you and you are not already vegan, go vegan today. Look up dairy cows and see how they grieve when their babies are dragged away from them. Everyone can make a difference for animals by not participating in the meat and dairy industry. If you choose to eat meat and dairy, while expressing “sadness” over this orca’s grief, you are not facing the truth of your complicity in animal suffering.
18
@Val Seriously considering it, Val. I think part of the problem is that there are just far too many humans; eating meat, while still violent, was at least sustainable before we spread like locusts.
1
Plastic trash everywhere in the garbage dump we used to call our beautiful oceans, starved polar bears, and now starved orca calves, with much more to come. Once it was decided that we humans are the only critically important species, that burning oil and cooking the planet for profit is OK, and that God-approved multitudes of us is His Will, that which follows is certain. Stay tuned, and kiss your grandchildren. The next 100 years will be quite a ride!
13
If human kind were starving, I'd doubt we'd be so compassionate to each other. That's why this story is so fascinating. We're supposed to be more evolved than animals.
5
The people of Austin, Texas, tried to do their small bit to prevent so much plastic being dumped, and banned plastic bags in stores. Other cities in Texas started to follow suit.
Then some fools up in Lubbock decided that not being able to pollute the world with plastic bags was an "inconvenience" to them, so they got the Republican Texas legislature to pass a law banning the ban.
Not only do Republicans not care about the environment, but they are also the biggest hypocrites ever. They insist upon "local control," until the locals do something they don't like. Then they legislate against local control to assert their power. We are now seeing them do the same thing at the federal level.
Get them all out of office! Vote a straight blue ticket in November. Our planet and life on earth as we know it depends upon ridding ourselves of this plague of greed-driven Republicans.
38
In the end the central thesis of The Matrix will prove to have been close to the mark. If there is a historical review by some other species (even deity) in the future, human beings shall be deemed an obscenity. In the years since 1945 it has been fashionable to label grotesque evil Nazi. At the macro level we are all Nazis.
5
A good read for the politicians who think they can save orcas by killing seals and sea lions. Same old myth, same old result. It’s over for Puget Sound. It makes me sick to think of what we had in my college years (1960’s) but even then the wrong decisions were just getting started (wrong for orcas and salmon, and for people who simply wanted to live the good life in a superb natural setting and forgot that they were not the only cohabitants).
8
We can share this Orca mother's grief and her demonstration of it, and be profoundly concerned for the future of these Orcas. We need not worry whether or not we're being anthropomorphic - that doesn't matter at all.
More than this grief, we can also share anger and even rage that our elected representatives have known for decades that climate change was a fact yet did nothing to mitigate its affects. It was easier, and more profitable, to deny its existence and instead bow to the pressures of money, power and influence.
Now we are reaping their willful ignorance that denied and disparaged the science of climate change and its consequences.
This 'we' is not merely for humanity but for all living creatures on this one earth who will suffer because we, human beings, have chosen to pretend our influence on the climate is negligible and without those serious consequences.
254
@N. Eichler
With all due respect, the topic of anthropomorphism does matter, because many pseudo-scientists use it to justify the maltreatment of other living beings. Yes, it would be great if we all felt solidarity with the other living beings we share the planet with. But, because so many people don't, they say instead we are imposing human emotions on other beings that don't feel them. Casey is right, though, all you have to do is look them in the eyes and you can feel their pain, if you don't turn your eyes away.
@N. Eichler
Greed and thoughtlessness by people are largely to blame. Honest to God, I think if the planet were a living thing, it would simply kill us off. And who could blame it?
2
I would argue that a child who is deprived of his or her group-- mother, grandmothers, etc-- is also harmed.
The grandmother effect/ menopause tells us something about humans and Orcas. For highly social creatures, having more adults per baby is a survival advantage.
Nature wanted more adults per child, not fewer, yet over 30% of our infants do not even get one-on one care, let alone two or three on one. They get 1 on 5. And we wonder why we have epidemic anxiety and depression in kids.
4
The orcas are casualties of Seattle's boom. The water is poisoned. The king salmon are almost gone. Until we dedicate a portion of development's revenue to sustaining the Northwest's essential resources, we're heading for a dead end. It's not complicated.
11
"Unlike us, their core identity is communal..."
I think 'more communal' would be a better description. We in the west are less communal in our core identity than our species in the east. It is difficult for me to believe that the core identity of any social species can exclude the communal and consist solely of the individual except in pathological cases. I think part of the difficulty lies in our resistance to think of ourselves as animals and nothing more - or less.
3
Maybe us Puget Sound humans should forego salmon fishing altogether so that the Resident Orcas would have a better chance of surviving? We can certainly get our salmon from plentiful sources in BC and Alaska. We should also remove sea lions, and remove dams on the Lower Snake river. That is, assuming we care enough about this wonderful species.
14
@Will Hogan
A huge step would also be to begin pressuring Red China about their responsibility for 90% of the plastic floating in the oceans of the world. All the netting that seems to forever be killing or endangering wild sea creatures is Chinese.
Chinese fishing fleets of thousands of ships circle the globe contantly and produce so much light at night that it is easily visible from space.
4
Lest we get too sentimental, Orcas are apex predators, and among their prey are the infant offspring of otters and dolphins.
As Tennyson with with his romantic realism wrote:
"Who trusted God was love indeed
And love Creation's final law
Tho' Nature, red in tooth and claw..."
2
Your comment leaves me empty and sad.
11
@Marc Matz
Ever had veal? Eggs? Baby back ribs? The word baby is in the name, in case you're confused about where these things come from.
2
@Marc Matz I'm sure you'll agree with that philosophy when the aliens come and wipe us all out?
1
I am moved beyond words.
This writing is powerful and it predicts our own demise.
What we do to other species and the entire living world around us we do to ourselves. We will not escape our actions on this planet.
We are next.
And it's happening now.
Our empathy comes up short for each other.
It may be easier to find it for the orcas.
But, what to do?
I just searched "save the orcas" and I see one or two organizations that might be worth supporting.
Can anyone offer advice?
I'm compelled to help.
9
Two places to start: the Whale Museum at whalemuseum.org and the Center for Whale Research at whaleresearch.com both on Friday Harbor in Washington state.
1
Animals feel, have emotions, and complex inner lives. This is the simplest way to understand the behaviors we observe. Anyone who would deny this is being unscientific.
5
The level of sport fishing and whale watching outfitters in southern Vancouver island, where these orcas live, makes it hard to believe they have a chance at all. I've seen those orcas on a few occasions - always a delight.
5
For those hoping in vain that education and public awareness will somehow solve this problem, come see the J pod before they're gone. This is an empathy and community problem that has befallen humanity in this isolated age of Facebook and Twitter.
Citizens of Texas, Kansas and Indiana will never see an Orca outside of Sea World (though not even that soon) so why should they care? Commercial fishing may have all the rights of a human being with none of the the ethics or empathy, so therefore is incapable of caring. No market force will bail them out because nobody's livelihood depends on them. Seattle and San Francisco liberals are too busy chasing micro-aggressions to form a coherent or consistent message to counter any federal or state aggression against our natural world.
Goodbye J Pod. My generation will be the last to know you as an independent and free species. Know that our indifference and antipathy is only the pitiful reflection of ourselves and will ultimately drive our own species to similar ends.
17
Overfishing is not the issue, although the fishing quotas have had to be continually lowered, this is because of habitat. This author shows a lack of understanding of the issues in Puget Sound. Tribes have been fishing in that area for thousands of years and it hasn't been since the industrial age that these orcas are suffering. Tribes have sued to force the State of WA to fix bad culverts that prevent salmon from spawning in creeks and rivers, faster than the 200 years it would have taken them at the pace they were going. the Kinder Morgan Pipeline is going to most likely wipe out our resident orca pod by the 700% increase in tanker traffic, it's too noisy for them to locate their food, local tribes are suing the Coast Guard for approving the increased traffic without consulting the endangered species act. If tribes stop fishing or hunting, they get their land back. These fishing rights are guaranteed in treaties that are the only way the U.S. has claim to land and are backed by the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution. We need to stop allowing so many cars on the road, stop Monsanto, Boeing and other corporations from dumping poisons into the Duwamish River and support the tribal hatcheries who are creating salmon for our orcas.
21
All your comments well taken. Monsanto, and big greedy corporations are actively polluting everywhere on the planet, and killing the environment and animals. Even in Hawaii, where environmental laws are very strict, Monsanto is growing genetically engineered crops and spraying their crops, and all of these chemicals are going right into the ocean. People have to rise up, stop buying products made by these corporations, and become activists- all of us.
2
Great and moving article Ms Casey. But what next? There was not one organization listed on Charity Navigator regarding orcas or whales that was recommended. What can an ordinary person do next?
5
Two Washington state organizations that are located in Puget Sound, the Center for Whale Research at whaleresearch.com and the Whale Museum at whalemuseum.org. Both are located on Friday Harbor in the San Juan islands.
The only person I know who is still convinced that we humans engage too much in anthropomorphization is 87. He was raised old-school, when scientists were so busy dissecting animals in order to study them that they had to make up stories about animals not feeling anything, so that they could go on treating animals as cruelly as they did back then. He also never allowed his children to have pets, which made it all the more difficult for him to have any experiences with animals that might contradict his own firmly fixed, and wholly incorrect, ideas.
There are human beings who are quite clearly incapable of empathizing with anyone, including members of their own species. Just have a look at the current guy in the Oval Office (who also has no pets), most of the Republican members of Congress, and many of the people who support him.
I have no clue as to what causes their lack of empathy - whether they are born with insufficient capacity to feel, or whether they have been punished so often for showing emotion that they are no longer able to acknowledge it - regardless, these folks make life miserable for the rest of us and for anyone else, human or animal, they come into contact with. The least we can do for the sake of humanity and life on the planet is to vote them all out of office, so that the rest of us with normal human feelings can get on with the business of saving the planet for all.
And by the way, that includes encouraging people to have far fewer children.
16
It's too late really. If you're looking for the restoration of ecological balance and harmony of long ago Native Peoples, land, animals and culture - it's too late. With a world population soon surpassing 7.6 billion - (THE most detrimental factor by far) - a totally clueless and could-not-care-less current administration regarding anything ecoenvironmental, and the white house chief with no resident pet since 1901 (?) ... That speaks volumes. Volumes of species and habitats shifting, declining and vanishing. . . If this stuff is indicative of future trends and mind-sets, then it really is too late. But, pick a cause - small, local, reasonable and dive in. Your tiny, positive ripple will not stagnate.
12
@Ella Isobel James K Polk, whose presidency ended in 1849, was the only president besides Trump who apparently had no pets. Even Washington had many dogs and a parrot!
2
Occam's Razor pleads for consideration of simplest hypotheses. Could this whale behavior not merely be an innate response to a calf in distress, and the mother's (in this case failed) attempt to keep the calf alive (breathing air) until the distress passes? It is, of course, most tempting to attribute psychological activity to non-human creatures, but does not this claim require extraordinary evidence?
14
@Jacques Caillault
I would say that it requires justification to consider the claim "extraordinary" in the first place.
The simplest explanation does not have to be one devoid of shared attributes among mammals. Orcas, dolphins, apes and chimpanzees exhibit behaviors that appear empathetic. Should we only attribute the emotional response and empathetic engagement that motivate those behaviors to our own species? Empathy and love may just be evolutionary tricks played on us to keep the species going, but ignoring the possibility of shared attributes among mammals seems like saying orcas have lungs but not for the same reason we do.
80
@Jacques Caillault
I don't think it's appropriate to apply Occam's Razor in this case because the answers we're looking for will have more to do with the weight of the evidence (as well as some philosophical questions) than the simplicity of competing hypotheses. We're considering the behavior and psychology of a complex creature, and actually could ask similar questions about humans.
Psychological causality and physical causality are not mutually exclusive. Consider how you would explain a human taking his hand out of a pitcher of ice water.
We already have extraordinary evidence about orcas in terms of the size and structure of their brains and the fact that they are social beings. We know that basic emotions are rooted in biological needs and that higher emotions are rooted in social needs. I expect that orcas have communication symbols and feelings that they associate with humans.
1
Significant and immediate effort should be put into helping out the endangered southern resident Orca population. They are very few in number, have unique dietary adaptations and are an integral part of First Nations cultures.
Just one point of information. Their plight should not suggest to anyone that Orcas worldwide are therefore in trouble: there are at least 50,000distributed between many pods in every ocean and climate change is actually allowing them to expand their range in the North.
I am not stating this to diminish in any way the significance of this local catastrophe. The local NW group is unique and must be helped out immediately.
69
@NormBC Wow! Then I'm sure you would not regard the human race as being in any kind of trouble if there were 50,000 individuals still alive worldwide.
How far does the number have to drop for you to be concerned? About orcas or any of the other non-human animals who share this place?
2
I don't want to imagine a world without Orcas. It sickens me that man has encroached on every species habitat in existence and in doing so only brought destruction and death. We are the least needed and least amazing species on the planet and the world would be so much better off without us in it. We have not helped the Earth in any way and it does not need us. What Earth needs is more trees, clean air and water, and to be left unfouled by humans.
112
@CJ
Surely you don't mean it.
I agree that the rise of humans has been an ecological shock that has greatly destabilized the planet, but our ability to understand and manipulate nature is, as far as I can tell, unparalleled. There is something to be said for the phenomena of human-level symbols, language, technology, art and consciousness.
I don't know that the Earth "needs" anything, but I think it's a better place if it's home to enlightened humans who can be stewards of a sustainable, yet evolving ecosystem.
If you really think we're "the least amazing species on the planet" maybe you should meet some new friends. Or just take a good look in the mirror.
This is a fierce lesson for the pod. The matriarchal residents depend on shared knowledge to grow and keep their spot as top predator. Her group is starving to death up here, the other group of orcas( the transients) are doing much better, as they hunt seals and other mammals , which are thriving in the Salish sea. I've seen J35 a number of times. I'm so sorry for her loss.
83
@Lisa Murphy
Given what you and others are saying about the orcas' sharing of knowledge, I wonder if it's possible her "grief tour" is a way of spreading the word about the dangers? It seems that these animals are quite sophisticated cognitively. Perhaps she is advertising the plight of her calf on purpose - sharing her story on orca social media, so to speak.
18
Just looking at video of wildlife...whales, elephants, rhinoceros, causes a dark sadness I can scarcely express. We are leaving future generations with nothing but the detritus of our "civilization". Our successors will live almost alone on a plant fouled by past generations for what...the convenience of plastic bags and straws, the freedom to pollute the air with a trip to the mall to buy "stuff", the unprincipled freedom to use land and resources to enrich an entitled class? For a patently silly belief that rhino horn will cure the erectile dysfunction of a man with more money than sense?
Mine will be the first generation to leave the earth and its inhabitants demonstrably worse off than it was when we were born, a record we have not been able to break since the early Western Middle Ages. We are the new barbarians.
117
Why do we even need to anthropomorphize orcas? Can’t we just see them as fellow creatures on this planet with their own rights and respect them? That should go for all creatures. Humans have made a huge mess of this planet. The suffering of animals is on us. That orca mother is doing whatever it is she needs to do. Scientists can figure out why. Meanwhile, the rest of us need to think long and hard about how we live our lives. How do we get the orcas’ environment back to sustainability for them? Or is it too late?
99
I read that Orca's in general are doing fine, relatively speaking. It's just this group living off the Washington - Vancouver coast that's in trouble. They only eat salmon and that is their problem. They haven't and don't seem at all interested in adapting to survive, and they likely won't. Most other Orca eat seals. Apparently there's plenty of seals around, too many. Many species over time change and adapt, some don't.
Also of course animals have emotions and feelings. Probably more than humans. I believe animals have very strong ESP ( for lack of a better term ), esp. insects. Animals also know what they are. A lion knows it's a lion. It knows what it has to do to survive, A dog knows it's a dog, (Usually). Humans are always trying to get them to act like humans. Which can be fun and amusing but really a waste. As far as intelligence, I'm sure different whales have different smarts. Maybe this mother is just not that smart. Maybe she wasn't raised right. Maybe she knows no better. Or maybe she doesn't want to accept the fact her child is dead. I just think if it is in our power and the cost (what it would take for this group to survive) justifies the benefit, Ok. But maybe as I said it's up to them to adjust & change. That's just the way things go sometimes.
8
@Doctor Woo
Obviously, you do not live in orca country. The reason the Southern resident orca population is down to a mere 75 is due to multiple reasons. For years, men would shoot at them and kill them. (The US Navy killed the entire Greenland offshore orca population by shooting over 900 of them.) Then in the 1960s and 1970s, Sea World came to Washington state and kidnapped orcas to put them into captivity at the SeaWorld amusement parks, killing many orcas and devastating the population.
Now, the orcas face difficulties with pollution ---- their bodies are so full of toxins that when one washes up dead, it is handled and buried as toxic waste. Human population in the the Puget Sound region has increased and increased boat traffic and underwater engine and industrial noise harm them. Dams and overfishing have diminished the salmon runs.
These inland sea resident orcas feed primarily on salmon. There is another type of orca known as transient orcas who have a territory different than the residents and who feed on other marine mammals. The residents and the transients have not interbred in some 200,000 years and seem to have divided up territory and resources.
The boats need to go and the dams that destroy salmon runs need to come down if the orcas are to have any chance of surviving.
This orca mother is grieving, which you would know if you had a heart.
13
@Doctor Woo
I wondered, when I first saw this story, about day 3, if J35 was not, in fact, holding her dead child up for us to see, specifically, because we were the cause of death. Almost as if she were trying to show all the world and US, what we have been doing to them: Driving out the NATIVE Culture yet again and taking the resources that they need to survive, and fouling what we don't take.
That Orca population, with it's specific bloodlines and culture, is part of what keeps the whole mass of Orcas from inbreeding. There is intermingling during mating seasons. I do not think that the matriarch deserves blame, she is following what thousands of years of Orcas lives has programmed into their culture. But they have never had to deal with the pollution and all the ravaging of resources before.
I am sure that low food supplies have been hit before, and salmon NORMALLY have a very wide range, but modern fishing techniques have over harvested the fish so that most of the really big nice fish are getting to be rarer, and those are the very fish that these Orcas feed on.
So, in essence, WE Did kill her calf, and she Rightfully held it in our face and has been telling us that we are to blame. She knows. Anthropomorphosizing or Cetaceanicizing it either way, it still comes out Our Fault her calf is dead. Of Course she mourns.
1
As the article mentions, Orcas eat sardines and likely other foods. But even the clams and mussels and other sea life are being contaminated by the discharges from Seattle and environ.
1
Perhaps a happier end to this story would be some orca grandparents telling their grandchildren how once there was a species that was so rapacious, cruel and ultimately stupid that it nearly killed everything on earth, but fortunately we survived and that species didn't. There is no punishment strong enough for how man is presently destroying Mother Earth, knowingly and purposefully, and all of her magnificent creatures. It just proves the fact that man is, without a doubt, inferior in every way to most everything else that presently occupies our planet. Our brains are most assuredly not the "gold standard." They are programmed for complete self-destruction and annihilation of everything else on earth. Fortunately we will not be capable of killing every living thing on this planet before we perish. Long live the orca.
295
@Rich D
The shame is that most of us are good and don't deserve such a fate.
If only the inhumane and inhuman among us could suffer for bad actions.
But, perhaps we all play ball with these types if they offer us trinkets and goodies and plush, polluting cars…
And, a way to be hedonistic and shut off our better notions and behavior as we get lost in self-indulgence.
Assuming we ever thought about better notions at all…
(He said as he typed on his phone made by workers who make low wages in conditions none of us would endure for a day.)
I'd be willing to pay its true value, or not, if given the choice.
Or maybe its design and construction price would be altered so as to calculate the need to fairly treat those who manufacturer it.
1
@Rich D Wwll, that's not a path for the future. There is a better idea:
1) Vote out the so called republican party.
2) Kick out DT or let Mueller put him behind bars for a very long time.
3
@Rich D, Hopefully that should become a reality.
1
It doesn’t matter how many salmon are in the sea, if the orcas can’t hear to find them. A recent study shows that the southern residents lose 5.5 hours of foraging time each day due to noise and disturbance from commercial vessels and whale-watching boats specifically (ECHO 2017).
Even as the whales are dying in front of us, the number of whale-watching boats continues to grow. In the peak season of May through October, dozen of boats follow them all day, every day, throughout the Salish Sea. The fleet and the recreational boats they attract form a floating corral which the whales cannot evade, escape, or hide from.
Except for distance guidelines, the whale-watching industry is unregulated, unpermitted, and unrelenting in its pressure on the whales. Anyone who has a commercial license to carry passengers can become a whale-watch operator. There is no limit to the number of boats, the number of trips per day, the length of time they can be with the whales, or the areas where they are allowed to operate. It is a free-for-all on both sides of the border, and the orcas are paying the price.
How many boats were on scene when J35 was giving birth? How did their presence influence her calf’s ability to survive? There is a role for sustainable boat-based whale-watching. It must be sustainable for the whales, first.
500
@Donna Sandstrom - It seems kind of like zoos - they increase people's awareness of and empathy for the animals - good. They also ruin the individual animals' lives - bad.
1
@DW Thank you for your comment but zoos and marine parks do nothing to educate people about other animals. I've studied this for many years and published on this issue. There is little to no evidence that seeing animals on display in artificial settings increases empathy for them. In fact, it may do the opposite. It may lead visitors to think that the species is doing well when it is not. Thanks very much.
@Lori Marino, Ph.D.
Thank you - I hadn't formed a firm opinion about this, so I appreciate this information.
Thank you for this smart and compassionate article. Now, for the important part it leaves out: How can we turn our empathy into action? What concrete act can normal people take to actually help these orcas, and to help all of the other sentient creatures living in the sea? Fortunately there is something all of us can do, and it is right under our noses: Stop eating fish! Which is to say, stop paying companies to trawl through the oceans with huge nets and steadily empty the waters of their life, all so that humans can gorge ourselves on things we don't need (but orcas do), like salmon. In 2010, UN environmental experts issued a report finding that, thanks to human exploitation of the seas, we are currently on track for fishless oceans by 2050. Whether we end up there by 2050 or not will depend upon decisions all of us are making at the dinner table today. So give it a try: Quit fish! You won't regret it.
110
@Nick
Thank you for writing this. The world wide appetite for sushi and the love of these restaurants, had had a huge effect on the decimation taking place across the world’s oceans. I lived in Tokyo for two years and I never each sushi or any fish anymore. Also, the Japanese are still horrifically whaling (under the guise of “scientific research”) and they continue with their cultural blood bash of trapped dolphins every year....disgusting and heartbreaking to watch video of this. Really, Japan as a tourist destination should be on a worldwide ban list! Find an ocean and sea life caring country to go to. I’ll serve you some sake and miso ramen at my place!
5
Just read "Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel" by Carl Safina and you won't worry about anthropomorphism again. Why should human mammals think that other species of mammals haven't evolved the same or similar kind of feelings that we do? It's as obvious as the nose on my face. Or read "Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?" by Frans de Waal. There is fascinating stuff out there -- for people who can open their minds.
124
most people would never deny that their dog has emotions
The Atlantic Right whale is also imperiled here on the east coast. About 450 left. No new calves. Possibly extinct in 20 years or less. It is sad to be alive to witness this near extinction of these magnificent inhabitants of the oceans. Please boycott visiting the countries that are still involved with the mass slaughter of whales. Also avoid all Sea World types of venues with orcas. Keeping them in pools is equivalent to a human remaining in a bathtub for the rest of their lives.
113
As the author indicates, this is tragic. It is also an emergency. Living in Seattle, we see the root causes around the Salish Sea firsthand:
1) Shoreland development for homes and industry that destroys the habitat of the herring that the Chinook salmon feed on; (We need to restrict shoreland development in general, and prohibit the dredging of offshore waters and the armoring of beaches.)
2) Suburban sprawl that channelizes and blocks salmon streams where chinook breed, and introduces lawn fertilizers and laundry products into their natal waters; (We need to severely disincetivize sprawl, and prohibit chemical fertilizers and harmful laundry products.)
3) A car-privileged society that allows tons of asbestos (from brakes) and oil (from roadways) to wash into local waters; (We need to disincetivize driving and encourage the planning of walkable communities and the use of public transit.)
4) Dams on the Columbia River system, especially the Snake River, that decimate chinook salmon populations or outright block salmon access to breeding grounds. (We need to remove the four Snake River Dams that are not only impacting salmon and orcas, but whose functions are largely replaceable by other means.)
There are vested interests behind each of these problems, and the changes won’t come easily. But we owe it to the orcas to at least try. We will likely find that in the end, the lives we save are our own.
421
@Paul Birkeland. I'm hoping that your states governor is willing to forego political pressure and special interest groups to do what is needed now, I've heard about his task force but I've also read this orca clan does not have 2 months to wait for the task force recommendations. My heart breaks here in Missouri I can't imagine your pain living in the same area as these magnificent mammals. I'm hopeful for the best outcome I also understand a beloved 4 year old orca J50 Scarlet is extremely ill and may not make it :0(
16
@Paul Birkeland And, sorry to say, "control" on the number of sea lions that await for salmons' downstream migration. The tension in northwest people's minds between sea lions and salmon (and hence orcas) has been going on for quite awhile, with no consensus.
3
@Paul Birkeland Well said!
I forced myself to watch Blackfish, and I will never forget the hardened old fisherman who was involved in the capture of baby orcas decades ago. You could see that it still haunted him, all these years later, and that he knew he had done something evil. I now feel that saving these animals in the wild is the only thing that is right. Keeping them in captivity to preserve them is not ethical. If we can't help them in the wild, we don't deserve to have them around.
182
@MJ It's not about what We deserve. It's about their right to live on this planet.
6
@MJ
I agree with your post, except for the concluding statement. These animals deserve to exist on their own terms. They most certainly do not exist at our pleasure or at our deserving. We are under obligation to help them in the wild, as “we” - humanity - cannot create a single orca; and it is our selfish, ego centric behavior that has put the orcas at risk. More simply, we broke it, and it is our obligation now to fix it.
1
It is not anthropomorphism to recognize that other creatures mourn.
Last year, I saw my cat grieve when we lost our other cat and my father, just two days apart. Every night and morning for weeks, she went through the house unmistakably crying. The rest of the day, she spent her time in places where they had previously spent much time. This was all atypical of her. Adopting a kitten made her like herself again (or at least distracted her).
It is more than believable that the orca held onto her deceased baby as long as she could. Emotions are in no way the exclusive purview of humans. Maybe understanding that would compel us to be responsible and compassionate about other living beings and our one, shared planet.
376
@NM Yes I have observed the exact same thing in a cat. They are individuals. Some develop strong bonds; they might mourn a missing companion, or if they simply didn't LIKE that cat, they might not. I'm sure their emotions are as complex as our own. My cat mourned her deceased brother for nearly a year.
7
@NM
Thank you. Went through the same thing when one of my two cats suddenly died. Her sister from the same litter would also cry loudly as she looked around the house for her first thing every morning for days/weeks. At night she would look out the same window for at least an hour before sleeping. She was heartbroken.
Not anthropomorphism, recognizable grief. So we can grieve with this mother as it is the most natural thing in the world.
5
@NM
Indeed. I think of the mother Orca as I'm going to sleep and I want to cry!
3
Surely there is a way to protect and replenish the Chinook salmon? We've seen big successes since the 1960s, mainly when the government gets involved to mandate the changes that need to happen to protect an ecosystem. Give the protection and often ecosystems can heal surprisingly quickly. With the federal government abdicating responsibility to help protect environmental integrity, the states need to step up their game, and citizens need to demand it. Please vote this Nov. for candidates who understand we need to take active steps to protect habitat and prevent contamination. We are all part of an intricate web of life and you can bet the same problems affecting a top predator species like the orca, are affecting many other species, including humans.
223
Education and public awareness are vital to the survival of this and any species threatened by human activities. We must breach the four Lower Snake River dams in order to restore salmon habitat. A recent bill in Congress on Shooting sea lions is only a bandaid approach. See www.damsense.org.
Also, we are now seeing the potentially lethal effect on Salish sea resident orca populations of the great capture events in the 1970s when baby orcas were wrenched from their mothers by the marine park industry. For more on this, see the award-winning documentary film Blackfish.
This event and its effects are also featured in non-fiction such as Death at Seaworld by David Kirby and Of Orcas and Men: What Killer Whales Can Teach Us by David Neiwert.
For young adult readers: a book full of whale lore, Native American wisdom and high-tech there is The Blackfish Prophecy by Rachel Clark, a marine biologist, with an endorsement by Dr. Jane Goodall.
115
@Maggie C. The sea lions are being scapegoated. It is their fish, too. Over-consumption by people is the problem.
3
Why isn't the scarcity in the headlines?
7
Very touching. But where was your article about the video showing orcas toying with a baby seal like a game ball before killing and eating it. Nature red in tooth and claw. Awesome as in Job’s Leviathan. But not human.
What we destroy will also destroy us.
This orca mother is me, and every mother who grieves for what we are doing not just to the whales, but to ourselves and our children.
If the whale's salmon is contaminated, so is ours! Mothers unite. Ms. Casey, outline a plan. Show us the way!
10
With the Emmet Till case reopened due to "new information," I can't help but see a mataphor in this story. No mother can forget the pain and anguish of Mamie Till-Mobley. "Tens of thousands witnessed his injuries over four days, and Jet magazine published images of Emmett's swollen and disfigured face for the world to see. His mother had forbidden the mortician from any attempts to touch up his injuries." (From CNN News)
"I wanted the world to see what they did to my baby."
11
Who is "us"?
There is one multicolored multiethnic multifaith multi national origin biological DNA genetic evolutionary fit human race species that began in Africa 300, 000 years ago.
There are three closely related surving African primate apes the matriarchal sex driven bonobo, the patriarchal violence and sex driven chimpanzee and the patriarchal violence and sex driven human.
"Us" humans are driven by our nature and nurture to crave fat, salt, sex, habiitat, water, kin and sex by any means necessary including conflict and cooperation. We are not nor will we ever be like an Orca. Our perception of reality and their's are alien, hidden and mysterious.
The social insects are the dominant intelligent life on Earth by biomass. And they are just as alien to us as are the cephalopods. Ecology and evolution are destiny. Humble humane empathy is a moral virtue for our fellow carbon based life forms.
2
What's really frustrating by the time one gets to the end of this tragic story, is that there are no recommendations or resources to help us know how we can most expediently help the situation. There are so many organizations; which is the most effective at saving the Puget and the salmon and the Orcas in particular? Which are the most effective at fighting the idiot leadership on climate change and environmental mal-policies? One is not sure where to send how much support? We need that information even more than more heartbreaking news.
6
We are too selfish to save anything beyond ourselves...and maybe not even that. Short term benefits always come first
6
I find it both tragic and impossible that Ms. Casey's final prediction will NOT come true. Much will be the same for the majestic polar bear and perhaps untold numbers of other species. I have young children and during their lifetimes polar bears will go extinct in the wild and the Vancouver/Seattle pod will also die off. It breaks my heart. And the Canadian government, in its obsession with serving, quisling-like, the needs of the fossil fuel industry will only hasten this decline. Perhaps my children, when they grow up, will push to make a better world for nature than the one we have made.
5
The ones we are really anthropomorphising are ourselves. The idea that there is some bright line that separates our inner lives from the inner lives of the species we co-evolved with is just plain ridiculous and at this point clearly based on ideology rather than fact.
6
i think it might be better for the planet if humans were the species going extinct
17
A long time ago and far away, a bloody river and dying animals sent a message to the dominant culture: "If you do not change, your children will die and your power decline." Isn't this young orca mother or a telling us the same thing?
9
One more event that proves we are going wrong, wrong, wrong!
This is heart breaking as most of the news we are being bombarded with unless you are one of those capable of paying not a wit of attention to what is happening all around us.
4
A very profoundly sad article. The author urges us to do something but what is a person to do? Throw money by donating to Oceana.org as was suggested, stop eating fish another idea. Big corporations wanting to build pipelines are involved and big government. Gives me names of corporations or organizations on the west coast and I will spread the word.
12
The earth won't miss humans.
8
Let me turn things on its head. Maybe just maybe, Talequah was offering us a sign of things to come. Athropomorhisation in reverse? She is showing us what will happen to our children if we don't change our ways. Silly no?
24
This piece is yet one more reason for everyone to avoid SeaWorld. Their continued holding these noble creatures captive in their oh so small concrete pools is a crime. My sense is that among their captives are members of the same family pod described in this article. Think Shame, not Shamu.
17
Fewer humans, the virus of this planet.
4
A “tour of grief”? Thank you for putting a name to what I’ve been experiencing since November 2016.
27
The Orca mother and her dead calf are a clear message from our planet.
12
Contrary to stupid religions, humans are just another animal. Unfortunately, an animal that appears capable of ruining the earth. The people running our government are determined to destroy the environment, along with several other things. It is certainly possible that the earth will become uninhabitable for humans. Hopefully, we won't ruin it for a lot of other animals.
5
Human beings do such an awful job at caring, understanding and loving each other (all the war, genocides, obsession with weapons and skin color) I can fathom no way in which we'll ever have the will and wisdom to save this plantet for and from ourselves. Humanity is painfully divorced from nature, unlike all the other species (even other primates!) still roaming, still holding on. Not a week goes by where I don't think of David S. Buckle- the man who self-immolated in that park, desperately griefing like this orca- when will we finally listen?
13
Chalk up another one.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction
Today after I caught the last wave of a surf session, I was walking up the beach. There was a man with a fishing pole, offering morsels of bait to a frail seagull tottering at his feet. The bird was unable to fly or even walk.
Perhaps anticipating the incoming tide, the man gently picked up the bird and placed it atop a small boulder. Its feathers were tattered. It could barely hold its head up, and was probably near death. I felt the urge to stay and dignify its death, if only by witnessing. But I didn't stay. There were other things I had to do.
10
@jlafitte
Thanks. Your "nothing to see here" story perfectly positions enigmatic humans in this dire place and time. Your universal and tragic response to the gull is the message we don't want to own.
3
“For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours they move finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth.” — Henry Beston, The Outermost House
3
if her calf is emaciated then she is starving
9
Anthropomorphism be dashed: The pig was scratching.
However, forgive my foolish heart, but tell me that this mother Rhino is not loving and proud of her ugly, prehistoric looking little offspring...
https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/41649600
Like empathy itself the orca is destined for diminishment, nonexistence. We will kill them off to appease favored business sectors benefiting from utter apathy about the fate of this or any species.
Mothers brutally separated from their young, whether orcan or human, in the sea or at the border, are a harbinger and a horrid one. In my heart I join this mother’s cortège as so many of my countrymen don “I don’t care” jackets and walk away.
16
Do you eat ocean fish? Stop. We don’t need them to survive. They do.
20
Ya think all those cows, pigs and chickens we eat know they’re gonna meet a gruesome end ?
@New World
One difference is that we are not making the cows, pigs, and chickens extinct.
For me, it is sad to see the end of Orcas.
I hope a miracle will happen and Orcas will survive and one day thrive again.
3
Yes they do.
2
Moving last couple of sentences!, and for decades now I have been thinking:::: Yes kids and grand kids we loved you and we cared for you and we were interested in your future;;;; just not enough to inconvenience ourselves!!!!!!!! SAD
5
Man cometh of sea
The sea is of brine
The only man cometh of ape
Is aborigine and there is
ab ab ab in all of us
A hard look at the DNA of Blue whales and Sperm whales will show - when you look deep DNA enough we are closer to those two mammals of the seas than any other. Evolutionists be damned we all evolve.
The above is paraphrase from the Television Scripture, The Book ov Lev It A Kiss, c. 1971 by Michael Stephen Levinson
Sea for yourself http://levalive.live
4
Today, supporters of Donald Trump are reveling in his brutality, his thuggishness, his willingness to "stick it to" the uppity experts and liberals who dare to make Trump's supporters feel less intelligent and capable than they see themselves. So, these people support a man and administration that is going out of its way to destroy the natural environment, from allowing hunters to kill wolf and bear cubs in their dens to pushing to allow dirtier cars with lower fuel efficiency onto the roads. So long as such people exist, so long as they exert great power, I fear that the message they send about the human capacity to act on our better nature is very grim. Humans are horrible creatures; we are parasites on our own world. Like a horde of locusts, we descend and destroy everything. Capitalism has made the worst of human nature and impulses the major motivating force for our actions. I fear for the orcas; I fear for whales. I fear for the oceans, that many experts have told us are being more and more stripped of life every year. We are destroying the world around us and taking so many creatures with us. We cannot destroy our planet; it will survive us and eventually restore itself. But while we spiral towards our own slow suicide, we will take many, many innocent beings with us, beings who will be lost to the world forever.
16
We are closely related to all of the vertebrates so it is reasonable to believe that they experience life similar to how we do.
The best thing by far anyone can do to reduce animal suffering:
stop eating chickens. See here:
https://www.onestepforanimals.org/
.
2
A few weeks ago, I was working in my garden when I heard frantic squawking coming from the chicken yard. I ran over to see my little autistic boy had gotten caught by his sleeve on the fence, and our eight chickens were huddled protectively around him. As soon as I arrived they stopped squawking, and once he was free, all of the girls glared at me in silent judgment of my parenting skills and strutted off. Those chickens daily display as wide a range of emotions as cats or dogs, but 99% of the species is kept locked up in incredibly cruel conditions so people can buy dirt cheap meat and eggs. Please, everyone, if you choose to eat meat and dairy, spend the extra money on local, pasture-raised options.
3
I will state what I believe is a controversial statement but what I consider plainly evident to any objective and thinking person: the ascendance of the human animal is one of the greatest tragedies to ever take place on this earth.
355
@Tom Krebsbach Of course, human beings are not perfect, but there is 'the better angels of our nature'.
By that we've managed to build religious, educational and democratic institution. And the human species has brought forth the likes of Mozart , Shakespeare, Gandhi, Newton and Einstein and so many others of sterling qualities that make me proud to be part of humanity.
@Tom Krebsbach
" ...ascendance of the human animal is one of the greatest tragedies to ever take place on this earth."
Not correct. H. sapiens are but one of millions of species responding, through time, to the influence of the environment. The existence of H. sapien is without goal or purpose, simply another species maximizing the resources available in the environment, and maximizing reproduction withing the limits of the resource. Eventually global population of H.sapien will, by way of exceeding the carrying capacity of its environment, will shrink and eventually go extinct. One H. sapien disappears from Earth manifold vacated niches will become available for filling by the expansion of other species, or the evolution of newly evolved species.
The great man said it best.
"Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object of which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved."
―Charles Darwin
Last paragraph, first edition, The Origin of Species
1
@Tom Krebsbach - Is that tragedy Shakespearean, or Chekovian? And would you tell that to an early mammal in the jaws of a dinosaur?
Saving this species would be a step toward saving ourselves. If we don not change the final years of our presence on this planet will be sad as well as very painful.
8
Thank you, Ms. Casey. Wish to share the ending of a poem by Paul Nelson that could be read between the lines of your excellent essay:
"These are the stories the children of our
children will tell if there are storytellers
in their time. How we slept at the switch
ignored the clear signs of doom, how we
were scholars of war & good tweeters
had nice dinner photographs & saved ourselves
from Muslims & immigrants & every vague
threat the cruel majority could conjure
while the world burned & one whale mom
did all our crying for us."
http://bit.ly/2LX2mk0
32
One of the benefits of the internet is that it surprisingly gives us access to knowledge about animals and the natural world. Perhaps this will lead to the profound change necessary if we’re going to survive as humans while enabling animals to survive along with us. Developing empathy for Orcas and other life forms is an important step. It’s also important to recognize the value and beauty of animals beyond their resemblance to us. Nonetheless, this article reminds me of other animals who mourn. Take elephants, for example. https://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/elephant_asian_wedding?source...
5
The only thing that could help the orcas, and all the other wildlife and natural habitats that humans are destroying, is extreme population decrease and extreme cultural change. I am guessing it is too late. But that's what we need to do. So if you want to help, stop having children and advocating others to have children. Start thinking and reading about how we can go back to a human culture--like those of many thousands of years ago--that changes the earth less. It will take a long time to get there.
The earth will survive even if we destroy what is here now. It will just be completely different. We--and the wildlife we are destroying--are the losers.
15
As many have pointed out, the best thing you can do for the planet is commit suicide. I am not advocating for that. But when will we start shaming and ostracizing those who have way more children than is necessary. When will we stop putting in programs and laws that support and even encourage people who shouldn't be having children to continue to have them.
In other words, when will we limit and decrease global human population ???
Perhaps we should have a tax that everyone needs to pay before they are allowed to have a child. That tax can go to mitigate the effects humans have had on the planet, will have have on the planet, and to take care of that child in case they parent turns out to not be able to support them.
I've been to all the habituated continents, humans are not that impressive, nature is amazing however. I hope our Selfish Genes don't destroy it.
11
Empathy and cruelty is what makes us human. Some groups share the former more and other groups that share the latter more.
Unfortunately we live in a country - world - where the cruelest amongst us can't even "anthropomorphize" with other human beings - viewing them and disparaging them animals (though in my mind I have the highest regard and love for animals).
Human's behave stupidly in spite of having the intelligence to know better. That differentiates humans most from animals.
5
Ms. Casey, thank you for this. Anyone who doesn't feel a great depth of sadness when observing Tahlequah's mourning is clearly already dead inside. The southern resident orca population isn't just a canary in a coal mine, but a directly relatable and suffering mammal of high intelligence that likely exceeds our own, considering we're the ones who insist on fouling our only nest.
The Earth's environment, which has sustained us across the eons, is collapsing before our eyes, and it is entirely our fault. The situation is more than urgent. It is desperate.
And one should certainly drag politics into this. The Republican Party, otherwise known as the Trump Cult, is a direct threat to life itself. They must be defeated with every resource available, at which point Democratic politicians must be steered, kicking and screaming if necessary, to policy solutions that protect and restore the Earth. Otherwise, our children are toast.
34
The term anthropomorphism could only be created by a species as arrogant as our own who wants to detract from the truly similar characteristics we have with our own fellow creatures on this earth. This false and arrogant assumption is that somehow we humans are distinct. Another legacy of Western culture and Western religion (i.e. made in Gods image and all that). We are all part of the same family tree, it's just that humans have been more successful than any other mammal in terms of proclivity. But intelligence, well once again we define ourselves as intelligent then say we are the most intelligent. Kind of a circular argument. I must say that Orcas make me feel somewhat ridiculous as a creature. They are truly magnificent creatures.
10
Oppose the Kinder Morgan pipeline -- it will dramatically increase shipping traffic in the area where these orcas live, and almost certainly kill them off. Go to OrcaConservancy.org to learn about emails you can send and calls you can make -- not just about the pipeline, but also about trying to increase the salmon supply, so these orcas won't have to starve anymore. You can help these animals, but you have to do more than just think about it; you have to actually make the effort.
21
As a commentor just noted, emotions are not exclusively human. When my horse viewed the body of her buddy after we pulled the cover of of him when we buried him, she went NUTS. The pain she expressed shocked all of us. Horses have deep feelings and so do dogs. When my senior Doberman died, the others were very clearly depressed. The only think blocking our ability to understand or believe that animals have feelings is our arrogance.
29
Fantastic article. Anyone who thinks that animals aren’t capable of emotions has either never owned a dog or is living with their eyes closed.
10
We scan the heavens looking for signs of intelligence out there in the Universe. We spend large dollars on seeking out its signal, its signs. And this is a laudable endeavor.
Yet we are blind to the all the intelligence's with whom we share this planet. In fact we seem intent on the malicious slaughter and extermination of them; albeit all unaware that this is what we are doing.
If there is indeed a reckoning to occur someday for our species, a time of standing before the Creator to account for all we have done, I suspect this is what we will be called to account and atone on.
So it goes.
John~
American Net'Zen
8
Talehquah’s belly was likely full of plastic which we are all hopelessly addicted to. I’m surprised that fish netting was not her and her baby’s demise.
2
This is heartbreaking! We must recognize the animals are compassionate and intelligent beings. On the other hand, most of humanity has demonstrated that it is not. Our destructive actions and selfish behavior is impacting those that have no voice.
3
This grieving mother orca who lost time foraging for her self so she is being fed by her son. This is according the last local report I read.
1
The Orcas, like most of the animals of this world, are doomed. With the pressures of the human race and men like trump in power, I don't think anything can save them.
6
Orcas now we next?
We are dumping into the biosphere hundreds of millions of tons of highly toxic chemical waste, much of it non-biodegradable. That waste is destroying the regenerative capacity not just of the Orcas.
Recent scientific observations are warning us that we have become a threat to our continued existence. Violent weather aberrations and record global temperatures are now occurring. Ice in the Arctic and Antarctic is melting. We are hearing about future events from high temperatures such as a deadly Methane Hydrate Feedback Loop in the Arctic. By the end of this century oceans will have begun inundating coastal areas inhabited by as much as a quarter of human civilization.
The story of the end of the Orcas has far reaching Homo sapiens implications .
www.InquiryAbraham.com
7
I fear that, regardless of how many examples like Tahlequah we see, humanity will never find the collective will to act on the empathy of its best. One could easily substitute the name, "Earth," for "Tahlequah."
7
What a powerful reminder of just how terrible a species we are. Nothing escapes humanity’s clutches unscathed.
We are the great violators.
17
There are so many issues and problems to which those last lines apply. So many people have some empathy in the situation, and feel virtuous for that degree of caring, but they don't in truth care enough to try to do something about it when doing something involves giving something up.
"Thoughts and prayers" comes to mind, that oft heard phrase when action is really what is needed.
In this case any mother who has lost a child knows what is going on here.
7
Thank you for reminding us and "science" that our hubris is the very thing that prevents our learning. To draw straight lines between Humans and Animals is the kind of thinking that has led to pesticides in every day use because, we've been encouraged to believe, there's us and there's them.
12
Our politics is so polluted that we must change our country from the inside out. What this looks like is sometimes clear–the young people marching and mobilizing against gun violence–and sometimes not– more a feeling that we cannot continue on our current path.
23
Susan Casey offers us a powerful, beautifully written piece on the need to understand and protect Orcas and other marine life. Yet, as I read Casey's last paragraph I thought how, like the orca these children taken from their parents at the border have no voice and for me, her words, echoed for these children (brackets my addition):
"What’s harder is turning our shared sense of grief for this mother into an impetus to solve the problems plaguing the [children from parents by our government]. If we aren’t willing to turn our empathy into action, then one day in the near future we will explain to our children and grandchildren how incredible these [children] were, and how bad we felt about their fate. How their pain resonated with us and caught our attention. How deeply we felt their loss. Just not enough to do what was required to save them."
21
@Kleddy
And if we don't feel empathy for human children, how will we ever manage to cultivate empathy for other species' children?
2
It seems as though life is not so important as witnessed by the tragedies going on in the world around us. Orcas and Chinook are part of it.
Can we change in time to make a difference? I truly wonder.
6
"The southern residents (Orcas) feed primarily on Chinook salmon; overfishing and habitat destruction.... ". The overfishing is done by harbor seals, incredibly abundant since they stopped hunting, which have decimated the salmon stock. Control, cull, etc. the harbor seals and the Orcas will have food to eat and survive. Do nothing and nature will teach everyone a hard lesson.
9
@Mark
the circle is undoubtedly more complex,and the farther you pursue the feeding cycle the more that multiple issues will arise; i.e., it ain;t just harbor seals.
1
Well, if you do that then the transient orcas will lose their food supply and then they will be in trouble.
@MarkTake down the four dams on the Snake River whose electrical output could easily be replaced by solar. This would allow more Chinook to reach spawning grounds. As a reference point, check the stories about the removal of of the dams from the Elwha River in 2011; more than 4,000 spawning Chinook were counted in the first year.
1
Until the last few decades, a scientist who asserted strongly a belief in extraterrestrial life forms was considered a little nutso. We are getting to the point where a scientist who doubts they are out there is considered a little nutso.
So it is with animal emotions. In scientific circles "anthropomorphizing" was an accusation that cut off at the knees; belittling, or at best, indulgent.
Speaking as a psychiatrist, I am certain that we are upon the moment where a scientist speaking of animals sans emotions that of the same stuff as ours will be seen as strange outlier.
22
@Robert Levin
I so agree. And your entire profession - including psychotherapists who aren't psychiatrists - needs a serious revamp of its overarching understanding of the relationships between humans and other animals. I've yet to meet a psychologist who doesn't interpret feelings for animals as some sort of pathological substitute for human relationships, which is based on the outdated and inadequate "humans are on top of everything" worldview.
(And it wouldn't even occur to me to discuss any of this with a psychiatrist!)
1
Dear Susan Casey:
This profoundly well-written essay more than articulates the mess of our precious earth. Thank you. It's hard not to read some deeply spiritual message being offered to us by Tahlequah,
touching our most painful human experience -- the death of a beloved child.
If only we could really listen to what she is saying: Help me- and then make it our life's work to respond.
65
Loren Eiseley is a well-known anthropologist who is revered because of his ability to use nature as a springboard for understanding ourselves and realizing that, as humans, we absolutely need a sense of the numinous. Eiseley is, perhaps best known for his essay, The Star Thrower, which has been appropriated by legions of preachers, motivational speakers and politicians. In this essay, Eiseley shows up on a beach in Spain hoping to recover from what appears to be a bought of clinical depression He has given up on mankind until he sees a lone figure on the beach repeatedly bending and throwing something into the water. He approaches the distant figure to find that he is picking up starfish who were left stranded on the beach by the receding tide and is returning them to the ocean that they might live. At first, Eiseley scoffs at the figure whom he calls the "Starthrower" and tries to school him in the ways of nature by nothing that there were far too many starfish for the thrower to make a difference. The Thrower responds "well, it makes a difference to this one" as he returns it to the sea
Later, Eiseley has an epiphany and realized it "was mankind as much as starfish the thrower sought to save." He also marveled that a human being could transcend the gulf of evolution that separates men from starfish with a hand of pity for lesser beings after which Eiseley, too, became a starthrower. In the age of Trump, we need all of the humanity we can find.
92
@Susan
Thank you for reminding me of Loren Eiseley and recounting this beautiful anecdote, which I had read when I was young but had forgotten.
We can't be overwhelmed and rendered helpless by the magnitude of these problems if we can remember that we need only save one starfish (and one human) at a time.
16
@TM Amen!
1
Do not expect any compassion from the Trump EPA and men like Wheeler or Zinke towards the plight of the Puget Sound Orcas, or any other endangered species for that matter. So far our president’s biggest legislative moves concerning animals has been to reduce the number of species on the endangered list and to push for hunters ( e.g. Don Jr. and Eric) to be able to bring heretofore banned animal parts into the country. # Make Exotic Animal Trophies Great Again!!
72
I've been reading about this orca whale and her family of orcas for the last week. I read that something that can be done - and many people argue should be done - is to remove dams from the lower snake river. There seems to be a strong case for doing this. Does anyone know who would need to approve removing the dams in order for it to happen? Also, are there any strong reasons for not breaching the dams?
43
@D.C. 1) Governor Inslee
2) Why not? He is beholden to fishermen.
2
My best guess is the Secretary for the Interior Department, so good luck with that.
This is an ongoing issue in Klamath County, Oregon. Politics is the problem, as ranchers again want continued free irrigation water forever for the sacred cow and the cow's winter feed. They stand alone in opposition, with politics on their side. Dam removal is happening, but only in the smallest, least meaningful ways.
1
All of Puget Sound is polluted. Thousands (millions?) of women take birth control pills, for instance, and the estrogen and progestin in the pills is not broken down by the women's metabolism and just goes into the waste stream.
None of the water treatment plants in the area can take these and other non-metabolized pharmaceuticals out of the waste water, so *all* of that estrogen from all those years of birth control pills is in the water, flushed down the toilet and down the watersheds into the Sound. And that's just one pharmaceutical. The whales are dealing with hundreds.
Not even with the noise and the lack of salmon are their lives in danger. Thanks, humans! Heckuva job.
46
@Lennerd
Dear Lennerd
With close to 8 billion humans populating this planet, residual hormones from birth control meds in the oceans is the least marine life has to worry about these days
1
I cannot imagine wanting to live in a world with the great and wild things gone. What are Orcas to the great God profits. I can scarcely think of these things without great pain.
I am glad I lived when I did.
We should all remember what William Blake told us
Tiger Tiger. burning bright,
In the forests of the night;
What immortal hand or eye.
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
In what distant deeps or skies.
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand, dare seize the fire?
67
Exactly @goofnoff.
Orca's live wt/things. Communicate energetically. Are steered by matrilineal wisdom. Put the group over self. More evolved than we.
Having "lived when we did" -- only to see it choked and lost -- is horror. We've gone from masters to destroyers. Being human has become a terrible thing.
Tahlequah's dirge is an alarm, and a message. "Our babies are dying now" forces us to pause our egotistic, grasping to not only mourn, but actually do something. Will we save these creatures and ourselves? No we won't. It's too big, too hard, and we have bills to pay. UGH.
1
My own belief is that at some point, that the earth and its creatures great and small that we have treated with such cavalier disregard will teach humankind a lesson. We may or may not survive it. Frankly, I'm not sure we deserve to.
132
@MA. I'm afraid that won't include much of our megafauna except cows, horses, and maybe camels. The creatures most likely to bring us down are highly pathogenic microorganisms with broad resistance to antimicrobials. It might even end up being one devised as a weapon by humans, say in North Korea, Iran, or Russia that somehow gets loose. Eventually, even terrorists may be able to genetically modify germs in a basement.
2
At the rate we're reproducing, I seriously doubt there's much of a future for humans in the 22nd century. I have to say, I'm glad I have only another 20-30 years to live.
5
@MA. We don't.
2
Trump and his underlings at EPA and Interior would probably trade away the world's entire orca population if it bumped their latest approval ratings and GDP numbers a few tenths of a percent.
They wouldn't want their fingerprints on the bodies. But they'd happily lessen regulations protecting the environment and then let the 'free market' (read business interests) do the job.
On the plus side, with time, few will know what a real snowflake is. So at least we'd lose that pejorative term for those who'd grieve a species' loss.
63
"The Year of the Whale" by Victor Scheffer - a very fine read.
5
One can go on the Oceana.org site to learn more about how to save our oceans and the species that live in them. And Grumpy Cat is not grumpy. The cat looks grumpy due to a congenital birth defect.
25
Not only are we destroying our own nests, we have decimated the land and sea of the animals around us. We use the earth like a mine for coal, wood, fish, etc. It can't take it much longer. Once we have ruined this home we are dead. Think about it.....
89
Contributing to orcas demise is global warming, which impacts the food stocks on which they live. We can now see the consequences of our actions before our eyes. Too bad we continue to think of ourselves and our interests as primary. At least we will until there is nothing left in the ecosystem to support our arrogance.
We should be grieving too.
95
Thank you for this moving, informative and necessary reality check about these magnificent creatures. I apologize for politicizing this grave issue but the current Trump administration, from the top down and the entire Republican party, couldn't care any less about the plight of endangered whales or any other species unless the survival of those species monetarily benefits Trump, Republicans or Trump's ill-informed base which appears to only be invested in their own economic plight to the detriment of anyone and anything else on our interconnected planet. To paraphrase the old Joni Mitchell song, "they paved over paradise and you don't know what you've got till it's gone" will no doubt make a suitable epitaph for the Trump EPA
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Oh, it only goes to show
You don't know what you've got till it's gone
They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.
Big Yellow Taxi by the great Joni Mitchell
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In a way, this is not any different how humans behave toward other humans sometimes.
A fellow reader accused me of being a killjoy when I asked why people lavished so much of their empathy and subsequent joy on the 12 kids and their coach in Thailand cave rescue while thousand times more children were hurt and killed in various episodes in current affairs, like the Rohingya, in the Middle East, the dead migrants in the Mediterranean seas and even our own border with Mexico.
Perhaps I am a killjoy but this phenomenon of a few getting all our intention is more a norm than an exception. A five year old cancer got to be the fire marshal of the day etc. are reported in many communities across this nation. Yet, children going to bed hungry is not unheard of in this land of 4% unemployment.
Don't get me wrong, I am all for bringing joy to the unfortunate, just as I want to see orca to roam the sea free. Perhaps humans have done a lot of damaging things to the orcas and other sea creatures, but it is not just them. We need to spread our love more, whether they are social or intelligent or not. Else we are guilty of picking winners and losers
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Saving these Orca's would also be saving ourselves.
Is it past time to do anything effective against a temperature increase, already in progress, higher than our lives can tolerate? Such a fragile species we are, dependent on rare conditions the universe provided and we are blowing it away for lack of the wisdom and will we presumed we had.
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I am so glad that this article followed the news article: it isn't just that we "anthropomorphize" animals that this relationship and this death was troubling; it's not only because these are intelligent animals; it's that this is after all, what we are doing every day to the world.
And it is us as well: is this whale mother with a starving calf not also an apt symbol of human beings who are unable to live in their traditional homes, or find sustenance or a place of safety?
The story if publicized - may induce more people to support organizations which fight for the environment , for the animals in it and ultimately, for us as well.
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@cheryl The calf is not starving. It is dead, most likely from drowning. It lived for 30 minutes with not enough blubber to remain afloat owing to the multitudes of insults to which the group has been subjected. It's corpse is still attended to by its mother, with relatives nearby, for 10 days now, kept intact by the cold waters there.
It is a terrible indictment of what unthinking humans have done to the environment. Oh wait, you ain't seen nothin' yet.
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@cheryl
Deep thanks, cheryl, for your comment; with this consider, rather than “FIGHT for the environment, for the animals in it and ultimately, for us as well,” SERVE, CARE-FOR all the beings and things which inhabit this wondrous, sorely wounded planet, including the animal which is us...…or simply, as The Beatles sang, “All you need is love, love, Love is all you need…”
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Thank you for this article, not only is this population of orcas critically endangered but marine biologists and scientific researchers have been fighting for this magnificent orca pod for 20 years! Snake river dams need to be breached so Chinook salmon which are critically endangered can rebound and in turn the southern resident orcas can rebound. As humans with supposedly the top intelligence on the planet, our greed is destroying this planet. What intelligent being destroys its own habitat making said habitat inviable? Man
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What we are doing to our waterways and the planet as a whole in the name of more money is appalling. But take hope, there is always air conditioned air in city high rises and bottled water to drink and chemically enhanced grass on our golf courses. America is great again.
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@JKile Well said!
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I really want this resident group of Orcas to survive and flourish but I am unsure as to whether ideological appeals like this one really help that much.
These Orcas are in trouble, and there are concrete things that that might help them out. There is no reason to use their plight to bring in everything that's wrong with our treatment of the oceans. To wit:
1. If you want these particular Orcas to survive there must be more Chinook salmon made available to them. Other considerations are secondary.
2. For there to be more Chinook salmon these Chinook need to flourish. I can attest their stead shrinkage in size over the years, which in turn is due to their preferred food being in short supply: herring. There need to be an immediate ban on commercial fishing for herring in Canada and the US, period. There also needs to be an immediate effort to expand spawning sites for herring. Do these things and the herring will rebound quickly.
3. Chinook have indeed been over-fished historically (though not recently). There numbers are far too low for the ensured safety of the Chinook population, let alone the Orcas that eat them. There should be an immediate increase in hatchery production of Chinook in both countries.
4. Chinnok have been badly affected by habitat degradation, especially in rivers, streams and spawning grounds. Controls on these, particularly further controls on logging practice along with habitat restoration and critical medium term necessities.
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@NormBC: thank you for some practical suggestions.
I was very disappointed recently to read author Paul Greenberg ("FOUR FISHES") writing articles here at the NYT about how we should EAT MORE FISH, because it's so healthy. His book convinced me completely that we were overfishing the oceans of the world to extinction in our greed for fish (and our belief that it is so healthy vs. other foods) -- but he's done a 180º and that is troubling.
We can't have it both ways -- greedily eating all the wild fish we want, and then boo-hooing over the extinction of species.
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@NormBC
These things can be accomplished but not without the political will. The destruction of the environment is the ultimate example of privatize the profits and socialize the costs.
As global warming is creating problems in the Pacific as regard to the distribution of Chinook prey. The will to fix global warming is not there because it requires economic sacrifice.
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This moving, necessary article moved me to tears. It explains who are the orcas and what is their plight. Each of us must do what we can to help them, to save them, and to save our oceans. Empty gestures won't cut it. Perhaps nothing will. But each of us can try to make a difference. Find out how, and act.
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@Zola
We can stop reproducing right now. In 75 years the planet will begin healing itself.
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