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S. Berliner, III's Whales Page
Updated: 12 Nov 2002, 09:30 ET
(Created 01 Jun 1998)
[Ref: This is orcawhal.html (URL http://home.att.net/~Berliner-Ultrasonics/orcawhal.html)]

S. Berliner, III's

WHALE Page

Consultant in Ultrasonic Processing
"changing materials with high-intensity sound"
Technical and Historical Writer, Oral Historian
Popularizer of Science and Technology
Rail, Auto, Air, Ordnance, and Model Enthusiast
Light-weight Linguist, Lay Minister, and Putative Philosopher
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WHALES and DOLPHINS

INDEX - This page is basically unindexed - scroll away - except for KEIKO (Freed Willie).

(12 Nov 02)

ORCAs and other DOLPHINS and WHALES

Just in case you are not aware, all Orcas (Killer Whales) are just giant (the largest) Dolphins (Porpoises are the smallest), which, in turn, are small toothed whales (odontoceti, like Sperm and Beluga or White whales and Narwhals), which are paired with baleen ("mustached") whales (mystacoceti, like Blue, Fin, Humpback, and Right whales) to make up the entire whale family (cetacea).

[The plural of Orca is Orca, NOT Orcas, but popular usage adds the "s", so I will follow suit; Orcas it is.]

Here's a typical sighting of an Orca:

ORCA ANIMATION

WARNING!

The following picture contains explicit violence!

But, then, that's the way life is.

Here's a typical activity of an Orca (but not one so commonly seen):

ORCA FEEDING

In 1963, I visited the Sea World Aquarium in San Diego and "met" my first killer whales (orcas) up close. A few years later, I was at the Marineland of the Pacific Aquarium in Los Angeles and "met" Shamu and her smaller buddy, Kilroy. I spent every daytime minute of a long weekend at the Orca tank; going through a routine of squeaks and whistles and such that I thought was attracting the whales' attention. Several years later, I repeated the process and the whales just about jumped out of the tank; they spy-hopped and cavorted until the keepers came running to throw me out of the park. It took a bit of doing to convince them I wasn't harassing the whales, but merely reaquainting myself with them. Make what you will of this; I only report what actually happened.

Back when he was a highly-regarded cetacean expert (one of the first), I corresponded with the renowned Dr. John C.Lilly about communicating with dolphins. Charitably, I will only say that I felt that he had gotten carried away with himself. I still believe that I could develop a perfectly-workable system of mutual communication with orcas; they are developmentally up there with us, whereas I now believe that bottlenose dolphins (Flipper et al) are developmentally the chimpanzees of the sea (if so, then the beluga are the orangs). I have neither the money nor the credentials to do so, but I truly believe I could do it given the means; any takers/backers?.

I took a whale watch cruise off Long Island's Montauk Point with Okeanos on a 35' boat; at one point, a finback was directly under us when the crewman in the stern reported 10' of tail abaft and I could clearly see 10' of nose for'ard of me in the pulpit.

In 1982, I was driving down the hill (due west) from Hearst's San Simeon mansion around 16:00 when a gigantic blue broached only a ¼-mile offshore directly ahead of me; its tail came fully clear of the surface by about 10' as I gaped, then it spiraled around and smashed dorsal fin first back into the Pacific, creating the closest thing to a tsunami I've ever seen. What a glorious sight, and my older daughter was asleep in the back seat and missed the whole show (it was unmistakeably a blue, not a fin or grey).

More to follow; I am an inveterate Orca buff and will be adding significantly to this page - stay tuned.

By an almost-inconceivable (and eerie) coincidence, I got a call as I was starting this page (13:15 on 01 Jun 98) that Family Circle Magazine for 02 Jun 98, on Page 11, notes that Radio Station CJKW-FM in Vancouver, BC, at 88.5, is starting ORCA-FM, with a hyrophone in the Pacific (Robson Bight, off Vancouver Island's west shore) to pick up and broadcast the sounds of the pods (that's the term of venery for more than one Orca). The broadcasts are presently available only within a 10Km (6.2 mi.) radius of Vancouver but will shortly be available right on the Net at the Vancouver Aquarium's site. The aquarium has an extensive Web site with a 13-frame Orca page, with sound!

Orcas appear to be decimating the Pacific Northwest sea otter population; it's probably because the seal population is dwindling.

Mar 99 - Southwest Airlines just commenced service at Long Island's MacArthur Airport with 737s decorated with a black and white orca motif! I can't find an image on their site; maybe I'll just run out there with the digital camera.

14 May 02 - AP reports a sick young female Orca from the A Pod alone in central Puget Sound; hairy problem whether or not to intervene. My feeling is yes. She's named A-73 by the National Marine Fisheries Service, "Springer" by the press, and calls herself "Calling One" (according to locals who claim to be in communication - really). They say she is here on a mission which is to get the attention of mankind to clean up the dense chemical waters of Puget Sound (I sure don't buy this but would wish it were so); supposedly, Calling One is from a Canadian pod and a solo female from a San Juan pod went on a mission to Canadian waters; Calling One is in constant communication with her pod who encourage her to do her job; she asks for human connection. I ask for a break. I may wish we were in such intimate contact with Orcas, but I'm from Missouri (symbolically)!

Links (only to a few of gazillions of Orca and other whale pages; I can't handle more):

Oregon Coast Aquarium (Newport) - one of the best sources of Orca info. (they also have a lot about Greys).

[Newport is on the coast about 75 miles southwest from Portland.]

NOAA's Orca site.

Barnes & Noble's Orca Page.

Partially Free/Partially Fee'd Whale Page {Fee Willie?}.

The Whale Museum at Friday Harbor, San Juan Island, Washington.

Vancouver Aquarium's Whale Fest.

And then there's always the University of Oregon's absolutely gross (and equally absolutely hysterical) site, the Exploding Whale, which has still pictures, animations, and video of a bizarre happening/"accident" which took place along the Oregon coast (near Florence) on 12 Nov 1970:

[This link seems to have expired but I found competing "definitive" links, one and another good one (among many) that have the whole video in full at different bandwiths (and I have a hunch that the first of those two links is that of the guy who put it up on the U. Ore. site 'way back).]

"For the blast blasted blubber beyond all believable bounds.",
blubbered Paul Linnman, landblubber TV reporter for KATU, Channel 2, in Portland.
{Now THAT is reportage!}

The red tint above is not a chromatic aberration; the Oregon Highway Division (as it was called then) seems to have been a wee bit over-enthusiastic on this project to "dispose" of 45 feet (8 tons) of dead Grey! A ½-ton (!) of dynamite splattered whale meat and blubber a ¼-mile all the way back to the cars and trucks in a parking lot behind the dune line, the roof of one of which was smashed down, and onlookers's comments as gush rained down on them are priceless (t'aint funny, McGee)!

11 Jul 01 - our local Long Island newspaper (NEWSDAY) reports on the Center for Whale Research of San Juan Islands, Washington, and its multi-faceted Website, http://www.whaleresearch.com, also with live Webcams.

Here's a crop of a new image I found somewhere on the net:

KEIKO (Freed Willie)

There was a "Free Willie" site at http://www.keiko.org/ but it's now been abandoned.

(12 Nov 02)

Actually, there are hundreds (even thousands) of Willie-cum-Willy sites but the funniest thing of all is that he was finally "rehabilitated" and released to the wild from his Icelandic training pen and swam 850 miles to the Norwegian coast where he is happily panhandling for food and attention! Take THAT, you animal activists! That whale spent some 20 years in human company; it was an act of deliberate stupidity and cruelty to send him off on his own and the result, with millions squandered, in a futile effort that was readily foreseen, and could better have been spent helping humans, went directly down the drain!

"Funniest" really isn't the word to use; "sickest" is more like it. In the latest (ca. 04 Nov 2002) act of bleeding-heart, knee-jerk, liberal idiocy, Keiko has been forced by his "trainer" and the U. S. "Humane" Society (doesn't it figure they'd be instrumental in this farce?) away from Halsa, the Norwegian coastal town, a village about 250 miles northwest of the capital, Oslo, where he happily interacted with children and adults and relocated (I wonder how?) to Taknes Bay, which is six miles from Halso on the Skaalvik Fjord, a more isolated spot, ice-free, where he is supposed to be able to reassociate with "wild" orca pods. NONSENSE! Keiko is a highly-intelligent and sensitive mammal and quite capable of choosing what he wishes to do; his choice is to continue humanizing - RESPECT IT! (12 Nov 02)

Where do these clowns get off claiming to be the "trainer" and protector for a supposedly-free animal probably far more intelligent then they? The sheer, unmitigated gall of it all appalls, offends, and amazes me. Leave Keiko ALONE! He'll find his own way and his own friends.

Murray Newman, Director Emeritus of the Vancouver Aquarium, sums up my feelings about Keiko quite succinctly on Diver Magazine's site:

"To release into the wild a killer whale that has lived most of its life
 in an aquarium is like taking your dog out in the woods and saying 
 'Goodbye, old friend.  You have been a good dog.  Here is your
 freedom.  Have a nice time.  Don't come back.'  It may seem like
 a good idea, but in reality it would be cruel and would not work."

Selah! In human terms, apply the logic to a former plantation slave who would rather stay and work for pennies than go out into the free, but harsh, world.

I lost the citation (ca. 16 Apr 02) but the beaked whales that wash up on U. S. coasts have been shown by DNA analysis to be different from the ones in Australia and New Zealand; they are a "NEW" (new to us) species! Bet the whales knew this all along!

If you love the great outdoors and the Earth, itself, you must read (if you haven't long since)
Chief Seattle's Letter, one of the greatest environmental pleas ever written (even if it may be a fraud).

THUMBS UP!

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S. Berliner, III

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