Old Tom and his clan were Australian mammal eaters. When the orcas take down another whale, it’s a savage kill, the stuff of nightmares, even for seasoned whalers. This isn’t legend; it’s reality. Orcas are the ocean’s apex predator. There may be no reason for humans to be afraid of transient killer whales—since they rarely attack anything they’re not planning to eat—but to any creature that’s part of their diet, they are the ultimate black and white horror movie, the destroyer of worlds, death. And since they eat the largest animals on earth, why wouldn’t these unstoppable killing machines feast on human flesh?
There are a few theories about why orcas don’t attack humans in the wild, but they generally come down to the idea that orcas are fussy eaters and only tend to sample what their mothers teach them is safe. Since humans would never have qualified as a reliable food source, our species was never sampled.
So why wouldn’t they mistake us for food if we fell into the water?
Because they don’t rely on their sight.
A shark will take a bite of a surfer and then spit it out because, apparently, we’re not as tasty as fish and seals. But orcas use echolocation to lock in on their prey. If a human disguised himself as a sea lion, the whale would know that the idiot in the sea lion suit isn’t part of a balanced breakfast.
Another possible explanation is that, unlike our species, orcas would never harm another creature they consider intelligent. Even though Bigg’s whales eat other whales and don’t mix with residents, the mammal-eating orcas don’t harm their pescatarian, pacifist cousins.
Because of Bigg’s work, scientists and whale watchers now know almost every orca in the Salish Sea on sight. His research led to the southern residents being placed on the endangered species list in Canada in 2001 and in the U.S. in 2005. Today, the southern residents are considered one of the most endangered populations of any species on the planet.
In 2015, the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service declared the southern resident killer whales one of the eight most endangered marine populations in America, and they are the only officially endangered orca population in the world. At the start of spring 2016, after a year that saw the biggest baby boom since the 1970s, there were only eighty-three southern residents in the Salish Sea. But in 1964, the belief was that there were too many killer whales, they were ferocious, and, at best, they were a pest that should be eradicated.
The young whale drowning off the coast of Saturna was a southern resident, which meant the only item on its menu was Chinook salmon.
IN 1964, IT was the salmon diet that had earned killer whales their designation as public enemy number one. A half dozen years earlier, there may have been enough salmon in British Columbia for whales, but there weren’t enough to satisfy humans. Fishermen blamed the killer whales, which were swimming beyond their usual hunting grounds in search of sustenance. Industry leaders demanded that the government step in to solve the whale problem.
Proposals from government officials included arming the coast guard with explosive bullets, bazookas, dynamite, depth charges, and mortars. One plan called for boats to herd the killers into shallow waters so that the air force could bomb the pods. One Canadian fisheries officer suggested using a baited line to entice whales to come close enough to harpoon. He was certain that if the harpoon failed to finish off the beast, the other members of the pod would do the job, saying, “There would seem little doubt that the cannibalistic traits of the rest of the shoal, if left alone, would soon put the finishing touches on him.” The fishermen believed that the whales were like sharks and that blood—even from their own kind—would ignite a feeding frenzy.
Finally, the Department of Fisheries settled on a more civilized solution than explosives. In June 1961, a fifty-caliber machine gun was mounted on the Vancouver Island side of Seymour Narrows to kill the whales. Seymour Narrows is roughly 140 miles away from Saturna.
The gun was never fired, but not because anyone protested. It was a dry, hot summer, and there were fears a stray bullet might spark a forest fire. Also, once the gun was mounted, the killers steered clear of Quadra, just as they stayed away from Saturna after the aquarium’s hunters arrived. In 1962, the salmon stocks returned and the fishermen assumed their competitors had already been culled.
The morning of July 16, 1964, the killer whales off the coast of Saturna were using their acute acoustic senses to track salmon. From April to October each year, the whales swim more than seventy-five miles a day and can travel at up to twenty miles per hour as they stalk Chinook, which regularly cozy up close to the shores of Saturna.
On a good day, an adult killer whale eats up to three hundred pounds of salmon.
On a bad day, there are no salmon and the whales don’t eat.
On a very bad day, a whale gets hit by a harpoon.
CHAPTER THREE
CANADA’S CAPTAIN AHAB
“Dr. Newman combines the best qualities of Louis Pasteur and P.T. Barnum. He is a unique public servant in that he has the complete respect and recognition of his professional colleagues all over North America and at the same time has managed to appeal to the public fancy.”
JACK WASSERMAN, VANCOUVER SUN, 1963
THE VANCOUVER AQUARIUM was expanding, and Murray Newman wanted a star attraction. Marineland’s director had warned Newman about their catastrophic expedition, so he knew that killer whales were too dangerous to capture. But Newman’s dream was to feature local marine life in his aquarium, and he considered the killer whale not just the most impressive aquatic specimen in his part of the world but “the most magnificent of all living creatures.”
On a tour of Europe in 1960, Newman had visited the British Natural History Museum and was enchanted by its life-sized models— elephants, a great white shark, and, best of all, a hall of whales, which included both the skeleton and a replica of a blue whale. Newman wanted his own whale, but unlike the statues in London, he wanted his model to be a perfect, anatomically accurate replica of the most feared predator on the planet. This would be scientifically significant—and it would scare the hell out of little kids. What more could any curator want from an exhibit?
Born in Chicago in 1924, Newman was a self-described “Depression boy.” His father had a prestigious publishing job and loved to hunt and fish as a hobby. Then the stock market crashed, and fishing and hunting became a way to feed the family.
“Dad loved trout for breakfast,” recalled Newman. “Dad also traded trout with a farmer in exchange for fruit and vegetables.” Ever the academic, Newman noted that his father’s favorite trout weren’t really trout. “They called them eastern brook trout, but they were really char.” While Dad angled for breakfast, young Murray lay on the ground watching the fish, studying them, and realized they were fighting. He founded his first aquarium while he was still in elementary school, when he bought a fishbowl from the dime store and regularly spent his allowance on the specimens they kept in the back room. He eventually saved enough money to buy his own tank and learned to care for the few fancy fish he could afford.
After a year at the University of Chicago as a science undergrad, Newman was drafted and joined the navy. One of his first postings was at the Battle of Bougainville in the Solomon Islands. His fondest memory? The tropical fish.
When his stint was over, he completed his