ORCA NETWORK

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County lacks legal authority to regulate whale watching

Orca Network Culture Cruise

posted 06/06/02
Orca Network will hold a benefit cruise from 5:30 to 10:30 p.m. Saturday, June 29, 2002. Island Adventures boat tours in Anacortes is providing a large boat and crew for the cruise. The theme is the social life of orcas.

Ticket price of $100 includes gourmet appetizers and desserts, a sunset whale watch, and an evening with some of the best scientists, writers, observers and thinkers in the northwest. A silent auction and no-host bar are also offered. All proceeds will support the Orca Network Whale Sighting Network and Education Programs. Limited tickets available, please call for reservations.

Details

Saturday, June 29, 5:30 - 10:30 PM

Departs Anacortes Cap Sante Marina (1020 Q Ave., D dock)

Call Island Adventures: 1-800-465-4604 for reservations

Call Orca Network: 1-866-ORCANET (672-2638) for information

A small number of scientists, writers, observers and thinkers have been invited to join in an interactive process to come to an understanding of what it means to recognize that J, K and L pods of the Southern Resident orca community live within a social system that is closely parallel to human cultures. Every speaker will have a chance to approach the topic from any angle and all guests are invited to join in.

Confirmed guests include

• Brenda Peterson, author of numerous books on whales and wilderness, including Build Me an Ark: A Life with Animals, Singing to the Sound: Visions of Nature, Animals & Spirit, and Sightings: The Gray Whale's Mysterious Journey (with Linda Hogan);
  
  
• dolphin biologist Dr. Toni Frohoff of the Humane Society of the United States;
  
  
• Dr. Rich Osborne, whale biologist for The Whale Museum, San Juan Islands;
  
  
• former State Representative and Orca Network Board Member Dave Anderson;
  
  
• Tony Angell, wildlife artist and sculptor, and supervisor of the WA State Office of Environmental Education;
  
  
• Storm Boy author and artist Paul Owen Lewis
  
  
• artist Sue Coccia, of EarthArt International.

Documentary videographer Tim Gorski will be recording the cruise for Free Speech TV.

According to Howard Garrett and Susan Berta of Orca Networt, recent studies indicate that orcas live in cultures comparable to human cultures. In 2001 a scientific breakthrough was achieved when Culture in Whales and Dolphins was published in the Journal of Behavioral and Brain Sciences. The authors, Rendell and Whitehead, reviewed all the relevant work to date and arrived at the observation that: "The complex and stable vocal and behavioural cultures of sympatric groups of killer whales (Orcinus orca) appear to have no parallel outside humans and represent an independent evolution of cultural faculties." The authors and other scientists organized a workshop on culture in marine mammals at the biennial marine mammalogy conference in Vancouver last November.

Cultural studies of chimps and apes have been conducted for over 25 years, but when Rendell and Whitehead discuss orca cultures, they see similarities primarily with human cultures. What, then, are we talking about? Can we put it into everyday terms, and creatively arrive at a sense of just what we mean when we say orcas have cultures as we understand human cultures? Does that include Art? Science? Tradition? Social skills? Habitat knowledge? History? What else? Orcas have no material culture and live largely hidden beneath the waves, so it’s hard to know, but let’s try to parse out this scientific revelation. What’s the common denominator that makes them similar to us? What makes them different? What do they communicate about? What can we learn from them?

The implications may be far-reaching. Do our local neighborhood orcas live in ancient, sophisticated societies, aware of themselves as members? Do they have memories of encounters with humans?

Will this new understanding add a new element to conversations about protecting or restoring orca populations and their habitat? Could that lead to better care of their environment, cleaner water and improved salmon habitat? A quota of salmon for the whales, perhaps?