‘Killer Whales’ Kissin’ Cousins of Dolphins

FRIDAY HARBOR, Wash. —  In one coastal Indian legend, orca was created by Natsalane, a great hunter who carved a “blackfish” out of yellow cedar and commanded it to kill his wicked brothers-in-law.

Orca tore the men to bits and then returned to Natsalane, a Tlingit man who ordered the sleek black-and-white animal never again to prey on humans.

To this day, orca doesn’t eat people. The creature is considered a custodian of the sea by the Tlingit people of southeast Alaska.

Orca, the oceans’ top predator, has been feared and revered throughout history.

In many American homes, the best-known orca is Sea World’s pleasing performer, Shamu, or the lovable, tragic Keiko, star of the “Free Willy” movies. The name--short for the Latin term Orcinus orca--is coming into use as a substitute for “killer whale.” The marine mammal is actually a member of the dolphin family.

Orca’s popularity is no surprise to researcher Ken Balcomb, who has devoted 20 years to separating killer-whale fact from myth in the picturesque San Juan Islands, scattered between the coast of northwestern Washington and British Columbia’s Vancouver Island.

It’s still a thrill for him to see the glistening black-and-white orcas swim past his research center, which is on a San Juan Island bluff overlooking Haro Strait.

“We all run down the hill to see them,” Balcomb says.

“To me, the world appears healthy and complete when we have whales and eagles and wonderful wildlife to appreciate.”

The Center for Whale Research here is supported by Earthwatch, a Watertown, Mass.-based nonprofit program that matches scientists doing exciting fieldwork with volunteers willing to pay to share the experience.

The center gets high marks from Washington Secretary of State Ralph Munro, a whale activist himself.

“It’s plowing new ground consistently in breaking down all the myths that have existed all these years,” Munro said. “These guys are hunting the truth.”

Balcomb’s project offers close-up views of the never-ending charms of orcas, which frolic in family groups, or pods, as they chase great schools of salmon headed inland to spawn.

Orca acrobatics can be breathtaking.

The adults, which range from 18 to 32 feet long, soar from the water in a splashing, body-twisting move called breaching. Another move, called spyhopping, involves popping their heads and torsos up from the waves.

From a distance, the orcas look pretty similar, but Balcomb says no two are alike. With practice, center staff and volunteers learn to identify individuals by the shape and size of their dorsal fins and the scars there, and by the coloring and patterns of the saddles.

Crews have made thousands of photographs of the gray saddle and dorsal fin--as tall as 6 feet in males--of orca in the three pods that inhabit the protected inshore waters of Georgia Strait and Puget Sound, a 300-mile arm of the Pacific. Since 1976, the center has developed family trees for the 95 whales in those pods.

Photographing the whales can be a mix of chaos and exhilaration.

On one sunny summer day, Balcomb wielded the camera while his cohorts, Rhonda Claridge and Sean McNamara of Telluride, Colo., grabbed a picture-ID chart to see if they could recognize any of the whales, some of which were swimming past at up to 30 mph.

“L-41!” says Claridge, Balcomb’s sister-in-law. The chart identifies L-41 as a male born in 1977, the son of L-11, a female born in 1957.

A microphone trails the boat, picking up the squeaks and clicks that make up orca talk.

The killer whale pods are matriarchal. From Balcomb’s work, along with that of a handful of others, significantly more is known about population dynamics, range and longevity than just 20 years ago.

Public attitudes toward the whales has changed dramatically as people learn more about them. Munro notes that marine circus parks may end up being the victims of their own good public relations, as an increasing number of children and adult visitors want to see orcas remain free.

“People who learned to love whales at Sea World are saying, ‘Hey, there’s got to be a better way,’ ” Munro said from Olympia.

Schoolchildren are raising money to send Keiko--now a resident of the Oregon Coast Aquarium in Newport, Ore., after being rescued from a too-small, too-warm tank in Mexico--to his native Icelandic waters.

In Washington state, elementary school students have petitioned for the return of 30-year-old Lolita to the San Juans from the Miami Seaquarium, where she has lived since 1970.

Munro and his wife, Karen, became orca defenders in 1975, after seeing a whale capture on Puget Sound.

“We were just appalled by what we saw,” he recalled. “It was a huge mess. It was probably one of the most dramatic things I’ve ever witnessed in my life.”

Balcomb’s work here began in 1976, after a decade of whale captures for aquariums and parks had significantly reduced the area population, believed to have numbered about 100 to 110 at its peak.

About the same time, Munro and other like-minded politicians--including Slade Gorton, then state attorney general and now the state’s senior U.S. senator--began using litigation and legislation to protect Washington’s orcas from capture and export.

The National Marine Fisheries Service gave Balcomb a one-year contract to determine the resident population in the greater Puget Sound region. The count was 68 to 71 mostly adult killer whales.

Following the lead of Canadian whale researcher Mike Bigg, Balcomb set up a photo-identification project. After the government count was completed, he continued his work independently, selling buttons and T-shirts and working a paying job in the winter to keep the effort afloat.

He and Bigg collaborated on the basic science of orcas into the ‘80s. Bigg, who has since died, concentrated on northern pods along the coast of British Columbia, and Balcomb took the southern pods along the Washington coast.

In 1987, Earthwatch persuaded Balcomb to make his work accessible to their volunteers.

“We’ve basically accomplished most of our population-dynamics work, sociobiological work, natural work,” he says.

“The thing to me that seems very important to do is keep a continuing record on how they’re doing and whether the dynamics change with human encroachment, pollution, that sort of thing.”

Of particular interest has been the explosion of whale-watching cruises in the San Juans, he said. In 1976, there was only an occasional voyage by the environmentalist group Greenpeace. Today, there are at least 70 cruise operators.

On Haro Strait between May and October, the waters are plied by people in kayaks, cruise boats, fishing boats and yachts--many hoping for a better look at the orcas.

So far, the killer whale seems able to coexist just fine with the human interlopers.

“These guys, as it turns out, are very mellow and forgiving about the whole thing,” Balcomb said.

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Orcas at a Glance

Name: Orcinus orca, which is Latin, or killer whale.

Classification: A member of the dolphin family, Delphinidae.

Range: Throughout the the world’s oceans, especially cooler waters.

Size: Adults are 18 to 32 feet long. Weight range is 3,000 to 8,000 pounds for females, 8,000 to 12,000 pounds for males.

Speed: Orcas can swim as fast as 30 mph.

Age: Females have a mean life expectancy of just over 50 years and may live as long as 90 years. Males have a mean life expectancy of 30 years and don’t live past 60.

Fame: Some of the best-known killer whales in this country are Sea World’s Shamu and Keiko, now living on the Oregon coast.

Associated Press