Killer Whale

Killer Whale
My earliest experiences with whales go back to the time when I was 4 or 5 years old and was sitting in an old reliable lapstrake (or clinker built) boat out on the ocean fishing for salmon with my mother and sometimes my brother. I remember the contented sound of the ocean waves against that hand built wooden hull. I remember all of the simple dreams that fueled the evening summer sun as it watched over us.

Occasionally, a pod of killer whales came through the area where our boat was. We pulled in our lines as the fishing was always over when such a thing happened. Even though fishing went flat, as salmon switched their minds instantly from predator to prey, the whales brought their own excitement and energy to the world we sat in. They seemed bigger than the life I knew but somehow seemed perfectly scaled and so naturally suited to the sea they lived in. When we returned to the land from fishing, people onshore always asked if we were frightened to have been among unconcerned whales on the open sea. It never occurred in my mind to be frightened of them. Being in the middle of the whales was always an exciting gift – a miracle in my life. It never never soared above the landscape of my mind that 10 years later I would become friends with just such a whale.

I remember the fishing clothes that my mother used to wear and the gentle summer that surrounded us in that place. That cranky, strong-willed single cylinder engine was always enough to get us where we needed to go – into the wind or into the sea or away from the storm or out from the middle of the whales. That engine was a good and dependable friend that always seemed unafraid. It is amazing for me to remember how happy I was and how unconcerned I was to just be there. Somewhere along the way I learned to worry about the engine and the boat and the waves and whales and the children in the boat.

Anyway, a good many things came to me from the universe that I first met in that summer boat. I have built boats, I am a fisheries biologist, I learned to dive in the ocean, I came to love the ocean. I was one of the first humans to approach with caring, a killer whale and one of the first humans to touch a living whale. Later I would learn that ‘Killer Whale’ was the English name for them but really; it was a mistranslation from the Scandinavian name for them that more accurately meant ‘blubber chopper’ or 'whale killer'. That made sense to me.

Transient Killer whales can hunt like wolves in a pack and are well organized and social in that activity. I have watched them pursue and take down Grey Whales in the wild. Two whales on each pectoral fin, two whales on the tail and the last whale casting his body over the larger whale’s blow hole. I have learned through these struggles that life's grip is just as strong in a krill as it is in a whale until the time comes to lay down its well used body. Life is powerful beyond our words.

For the most part; killer whales I have known are salmon eaters. Their mouth is so very sensitive – I have watched them in captivity come up under a duck in the whale pool and take the duck or seagull into their mouth and swim around the pool underwater two or three times before coming up to the surface to open their mouth and let the bird fly away – in what was probably a very scared and bewildered state. When I think about it now, they should not have 18 year olds training whales any more than 60 year olds should parent children. Sometimes the differences between generations can be larger than the differences between species. I see the whale differently now than I did as a child but its miracle remains unchanged.

Along with killer whales I also worked with pacific white-sided dolphins, narwhals, belugas, stellar sea lions, harbor seals, sea otters and other marine mammals at the Vancouver Aquarium in the 1970’s. I have lots of memories of the specific personalities of the many animals I worked with and shared myself with. Some of these animals I connected with even more closely than our family dog.

I never realized until this moment just how much has come to me from the time I spent sitting in that boat during long summer evenings. I am grateful that my mother did not teach me to fear those things that I have so come to love. All the things I wondered about All the questions that brushed close to my heart have come to be answered over time in my life. I still find new questions every day but one thing that I know to be true is that Dolphins are social animals – in such a more natural way than humans sometimes are.