Using stories, humanity deciphers its relationship with the natural world. Revisiting the Iberian orca attacks, Jesse untangles our long-standing fixation on whales.
I’m joining the war on orcas ... on the side of the orcas!
Two years ago, social media was awash with mock incitements to revolution. A pod of orcas, or killer whales, living in the Strait of Gibraltar had carried out a number of “attacks” on sailing boats: ramming into hulls, snapping off rudders, and even–in a few isolated incidents–sinking the craft altogether. Many online observers were quick to herald “White Gladis” and her pod (orca society being organised along matriarchal lines) as the vanguard of a coming “orca uprising” and hastened to position themselves on the right side of history. In other words: it was time to orca-nise.
Soon enough, however, the propaganda machine ran out of steam: overtures to our cetacean comrades dried up, and collective attention moved elsewhere. Writing for The Guardian in 2023, Emma Beddington turned a critical eye to the general air of silliness which had accompanied the brief “orca wars”. Casting the killer whales as plucky, anti-capitalist freedom fighters–rather than creatures forced to adapt to anthropogenic environmental change–was a way of crafting a comforting and cathartic story, she argued. Yet rather than being a novelty of the internet age, this was instead only the latest manifestation of our “perennial misunderstanding” of marine life. For centuries, we have almost always sought to understand orcas, and other inhabitants of the ocean, strictly on our own terms, rather than on theirs.
From the biblical Leviathan to Melville’s Moby Dick, and even Spielberg’s Jaws, the image of the fearsome and ineffable menace of the deep is a familiar one–perhaps testament to an enduring anxiety of straying too far from the shore, where we quickly find ourselves out of our element and out of our depth. However, as Beddington observes, the inverse image of “mystical barnacled angels” which gained cultural capital thanks to conservation efforts in the 1970s is no less of an oversimplification. Whales are neither embodiments of unbridled malevolence, nor helpless, harmless push-overs. Unlike the distinctive markings used by scientists to identify and track specific orcas, questions pertaining to the ocean’s inhabitants–and how we relate to them–are seldom black and white.
One prime example of the ambiguities arising from maritime encounters can be seen in the peculiar art of scrimshaw, a strange byproduct of whaling which enjoyed its so-called “Golden Age” in the mid-nineteenth century. The practice involved carving often elaborate figures into whale teeth, baleen or bone. According to Sarah Holland-Batt, this was not only a way of occupying the interminable idle hours of a sea voyage, but also of channelling “intense superstitions”. Several of these highly evocative carvings have wound up in the collection of the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney, where they speak to the “contours of human loneliness” as well as “man’s brutality towards the natural world”; they are the trophies of a violent and bloody encounter, but equally the sole trace of “two unknowns”–the whaler and the whale–“colliding somewhere in the ocean’s vastness”.
Orcas themselves occupy a somewhat unique position in this shared terrestrial-oceanic story. Despite their unparalleled hunting prowess–neither blue whales nor great white sharks are safe when an orca pod is in the neighbourhood–they don’t generally seem to have an interest in going after humans (perhaps another reason the yacht “attacks” generated so much attention). Indeed, the few incidents on record have generally involved orcas held in captivity at aquatic parks – the 2013 documentary, Blackfish, delves into the reasons behind this (and is almost certain to retroactively sour any childhood memories of Sea World). On the other hand, there are some extraordinary stories of intimate, symbiotic bonds between people and killer whales. For both the Tlingit and Haida Tribes of North America, this connection goes back to the legendary woodcarver, Natsilane. Left for dead by his treacherous brothers-in-law, Natsilane is said to have carved the first killer whale (Blackfish) from a yellow cedar tree. With the help of the orca, he proceeds to exact his revenge before commanding it never to harm humans again. Closer to home, the Thaua people of southern New South Wales developed an inter-generational modus vivendi with a local orca pod. The latter would herd baleen whales closer to the shore for hunting, and were subsequently rewarded for their efforts with a prize delicacy: the tongue. Steven Holmes, a Thaua Traditional Owner, has described how, when a member of the community passed away, “they were believed to be reincarnated as killer whales,” so that “the Thaua always remained one mob – whether whale or man”.
That particular pod of orcas seems to have gone extinct, or at least to have moved elsewhere–indeed, the number of whales frequenting Australian waters overall has yet to recover from the devastation wrought by commercial whaling, which was only formally banned in 1979. Yet, on the other side of the country, a killer whale megapod in Bremer Bay is now at the forefront of global research into the dynamic social structures and complex behavioural patterns of these highly intelligent and mysterious cetaceans.
Researchers have found that orcas possess their own “language”–a “complex soundscape of clicks, rasps and squeaks,” in Beddington’s words–which varies from region to region. In other words: the orcas of Bremer Bay have an Aussie accent. It’s also possible to observe forms of cultural transmission, as hunting knowledge is passed down from old to young. Orcas off the coast of Washington State have even been observed wearing dead salmon as “hats” (for no apparent reason), a behaviour which researchers refer to as a “fad”. This was first documented in the 1980s, before seemingly falling out of fashion; it seems we aren’t the only species with a penchant for vintage styles.
As nebulous as terms like culture, society and language might be, they undeniably bring us into what feels like very human territory. In Dialectic of Enlightenment, Theodor Adorno and Max Horkeimer note that the European intellectual tradition has always defined the “idea of the human being” in sharp “contradistinction to the animal”, arguing that the latter’s apparent “lack of reason” has served as the basis for “human dignity”. Our collective history of interaction and coexistence with killer whales and other creatures of the deep has more often been shaped by ignorance and antagonism, rather than respect and understanding. If we combine modern scientific advances with insights long recognised by Indigenous communities across the globe, we can see that there is a very real basis for inter-species solidarity–one which runs deeper than a shared hostility towards luxury yachts. In some ways, orcas are more human-like than even the most facetious of memes would have us believe–or rather, perhaps we’re simply more orca-like.
At any rate, in lieu of a formal peace treaty–which means the “orca wars” are technically still going–it might be in our best interest to keep them onside.