For more than a week, a mother orca in the waters of Puget Sound delivered a poignant and painful message about the plight of her species.
“She carries it delicately, carefully, by the fin, or on her head, so as not to make a mark on the tiny body of her calf that lived only half an hour,” wrote Lynda V. Mapes of The Seattle Times, describing the mourning ritual of an orca known as J35. While those words effectively convey the heartbreaking scene, it is the images of a grieving mother, refusing to let the lifeless body sink to the bottom, that create the biggest impact. The visuals have become a symbol of a majestic breed that is in danger of wasting away.
About 20 years ago, there were 100 orcas off the coast of the Northwest; that number has dwindled to about 75 today, and the immediate prospects for recovery are not encouraging. Fewer females are reproducing, and there has not been a viable birth in three years. Meanwhile, a 4-year-old in the J pod is showing signs of emaciation, and Dave Ellifrit of the Center for Whale Research told The Seattle Times: “I don’t see how she can survive. . . . She looks a lot worse. I can see the back of her cranium; it’s pretty pathetic.”
For thousands of years, the waters in and around Puget Sound have sustained the creatures, which can grow to more than 20 feet long and weigh 6 tons, with iconic dorsal fins standing 6 feet. But environmental factors are threatening orcas, which have been listed on the Endangered Species List since 2005.
The primary reason is a decline in Chinook salmon, the orca’s primary food source, particularly during summer months. As The (Tacoma) News Tribune wrote editorially, “The culprits include hydroelectric dams, bad hatchery practices, overfishing, boat noise, and discharges of industrial and municipal waste — some planned, some inadvertently spilled — up and down the Sound.”
Bigg’s killer whales that inhabit the same waters appear fit and healthy. They eat seals rather than Chinook and are enjoying a bounty of prey.
Adding to the concern is a plan by Canada’s federal government to purchase and expand the Trans Mountain pipeline project, which would increase tanker traffic through the orca’s habitat. Gov. Jay Inslee has been outspoken in opposition to the pipeline proposal, citing the orca’s plight as one reason. He also has convened a task force to assess the creature’s future and provide recommendations this fall. Next year’s Legislature must give full consideration to the findings and act quickly to help preserve one of Washington’s treasures.
Meanwhile, the state has broken ground on a $16.4 million renovation of the Puyallup Fish Hatchery, which will produce an estimated 800,000 spring Chinook to feed into Puget Sound.
While task forces and editorials can provide sharp words and strong ideas about the fate of the orcas, a grieving mother is likely to have more power for moving public sentiment. As history has shown through the funeral of Emmett Till, a migrant mother during The Great Depression, and a naked 9-year-old victim of a napalm attack during the Vietnam War, a picture is, indeed, worth a thousand words.
Now, J35 has wordlessly provided a moving testament to the plight of Puget Sound’s orca population. “I know she is doing this for her own reasons,” Ellifrit told The Seattle Times. “But you can’t help see it as a message.”
