Orca families use dialects, collections of sounds which are unique to
them and enable the members of the family to recognize one another.
Orca voice resonates at the deepest levels of the mind. Corky, even
after all these years in captivity, still uses the dialect, still sings
the songs of the A-5 pod. That fact alone gives us great reason to hope
that there would be explicit recognition that she was an individual from
that family group when Corky is finally returned to the ocean.
So when Corky comes back to the real world it's going to be a shock.
Suddenly, a whole sensory system that has been non-functional is going
to be alive again. Corky's going to come back to this little bay,
Freshwater Bay, up in Blackfish Sound in British Columbia. Corky's
going to go into a little pond, a little pool with log booms and netting
in it. It's going to be an enclosed space. She'll still be captive,
still under control, but be in the ocean again, in the real world.
Suddenly that sensation of what the world is, what it sounds like, will
engulf her. It's going to be an unbelievably powerful moment. She's
strong enough to take it. When Corky hears the sounds of the real world
again, hears the crackling of shrimp in the water, the crabs crawling
and the fish grunting and then hears the sounds of her family calling,
she's going to become whole again. I think it will take a lot of
learning, re-learning, a lot of re-adapting to life Ocean. She's
strong enough to make it. She deserves a chance.
It's a misnomer. Contrary to their ominous name, killer whales are
actually quite friendly. In the last 30 years, we have learned, Orca as
they're called, are also intelligent and deeply attached to their
family. So attached, in fact, that Orca do something virtually unheard
of among animals of any kind; they stay with their mothers all their
life. Their families, or pods, are broken up only by death or capture.
The Orca have incredibly highly developed brains. Their brains are 4
times the size of a human brain. They have brains that are obviously
well developed in terms of complexity of construction. A lot of the
brain is devoted to memory storage. Orca, for example are fantastic
navigators. They know, and they've stored in their brains the intimate
detail of the whole of the coastline that they inhabit. We have to
refer to charts and use sophisticated devices to find our ways around in
boats. They know it. They don't make mistakes. Their brain has the
ability to store in it's memory that incredibly detailed information.
(Information is Power) In the Orca brain, which has those amazing life
experiences, there is certainly the capability to store intimate detail
about the companion that one had early on in life.
The Orca community is really a huge extended family and there are many,
many individuals in that extended family, in that community who were
also alive in Corky's early years.
A large group of individuals in that northern resident community have a
good potential for remembering Corky as an individual. When Corky comes
home finally, she has real family to return to.
The captives last despairing cry rumbles across the tundra of this
page. Where sounds echo backwards and forwards off the walls. It has
nowhere to go, only circles to swim in.
In captivity they are surrounded by smooth concrete. It is so
artificial! How impoverished! What do the whales do? They swim
endlessly in circles, watching people come and go, waiting...
"If people can look out there and see that pod of whales and not just
think it's any group of whales, but that they know, this is two sisters,
and they are trying to survive, and they're trying to keep their babies
happy, people can relate to them because maybe they've had a death in
the family and they know what it is like to be struggling."
- Alexandra Morton
Are you a bird or a bear?
In the ocean, they are wholly aquatic, far ranging, fast moving, deep
diving, highly intelligent, extra-ordinarily socially and behaviorally
complex.
My name is whale, part bird, part bear, part life.
Spyhop with your mommy, spyhop with your daddy!
Breach with your brother, breach with your sister!
