Two legendary science meetings led to conservation
Two legendary science meetings led to conservation
Saturday, 10 October 2015
We’re coming up to the 40th anniversary of not just one, but two turning point conferences for whale science and conservation. The first was the Indiana University Bloomington conference that launched the individual identification, using photo-ID, more widely between humpback, right, gray and killer whale researchers, and the many other whale and dolphin species soon to follow. This was the subject of my previous blog, and an online article. The other conference was a legendary symposium on killer whales.
In March 1976, the first “International Orca Symposium” was held at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. Yesterday, I was back at Evergreen speaking for the first time in many years and remembering the events of that 4-day conference. Midway through the meeting, the news came that SeaWorld captors had corralled 6 orcas in Budd Inlet, a body of water that pokes into Olympia and is almost in the shadow of the State Capitol. The conference supported by Evergreen students converged on the capture site. We discovered that SeaWorld captors had used seal bombs to herd the orcas into the Inlet and that they were now preparing to move them into captivity. We also discovered that Washington State Secretary Ralph Munro had been watching the capture from a sailboat and was clearly upset about the capture.
I tell this story in detail in my book Orca: The Whale Called Killer, so I won’t retell it here except to say that the killer whale scientists from the meeting, along with Evergreen students and Ralph Munro and the State Government worked together to force SeaWorld captors to release the whales and agree never to catch killer whales in Puget Sound again.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, more than 50 orcas were taken from the southern community and transients in Puget Sound and the Salish Sea — a devastating blow from which they are still trying to recover — but this was the final chapter and the final straw — the beginning of a new era in orca conservation.
It’s great to be back here in Puget Sound and to reflect on those days, what we learned and what we were able to achieve through concerted group action. Tonight I will speak about this in Olympia, and also tomorrow (Oct. 11th) afternoon in Tacoma, Washington, followed by Seattle, Tuesday evening, Oct. 13th. There’s more information at OrcaTour.org. If you are anywhere near, please come and join us.