Pat’s Wildways: Orcas at sea

Bucko and I recently embarked on a trans-Atlantic cruise ship crossing from Miami to Barcelona, with much of that time spent in empty days at sea, reading books, gorging on deluxe food and staring at the ocean from every angle. But I needed more stimulation than this. On the opening night, when the key officers were introduced to us, I managed to catch up with the environment officer and cajoled him into later giving me a behind-the-scenes tour showing how food waste was disposed of on the ship. A few days into the voyage, he led me down a flight of stairs below the passenger decks and down a long, bare, pristinely clean hallway the crew jokingly calls “Highway 95,” to the food waste disposal area where equipment converts organic waste to a bio-digested slurry that is discharged into the ocean when the ship is far enough away from land. And what was this machine named? Orca! And the staff was tasked with sorting the food waste into stuff the Orca could process. “Feed the Orca” was the battle cry. It made me wonder if the combined discharges of this organic slurry into the Atlantic Ocean from many large vessels such as this one could be fertilizing the mats of sargassum weed that are now floating in massive mats covering many Caribbean beaches.

But also the word “orca” demanded my attention. Bucko and I called these cetaceans killer whales back in the 1970s and '80s when Bucko was a marine mammal trainer first at Miami Seaquarium, and for a much longer period at Marine World Africa USA in the San Francisco Bay area. Just seeing the word orca on that food waste processor brought back all kinds of memories.

When Bucko fed the orcas back then it was not with food scraps but with the best mackerel, smelt and herring that money could buy. And despite the common name of killer whale, the animals he worked with every day were not killers at all. The orcas bonded with their trainers, and vice versa. A much younger Bucko rode on their back in their pools in front of hundreds of spectators and, as part of the show, always got “bucked off,” thus his show name, which has been his moniker ever since. Yaka, a female orca, was especially attached to Bucko and would jump her highest and swim her fastest when he was the one giving her commands. And as a corollary, Yaka detested me, his partner, who would drag him away from her at the end of the day. Whenever Yaka saw me she would roughly shake her head and gnash her teeth and redden her eyes — sure signs of hate, or maybe just jealousy about another female with Bucko’s attention.

But Yaka never did attack a person, and most captive whales never do either. And it’s a good thing that the practice of catching and confining orcas to perform for the public is long since over. The orcas now in captivity have only known life in a concrete pool, and with no relevant survival skills, they cannot be safely set free. These intelligent mammals deserve to live wild and free in the world's oceans. Although I’ve known some individual orcas personally over the years, I far prefer those times I’ve watched pods of orcas swimming freely in the waters off Washington state.

I’ve now learned that the wild orcas around Iberia are turning the tables on humans — they are attacking sailboats and other small vessels traveling near the Strait of Gibraltar.  When our large cruise ship passed through these waters, I kept looking for orcas but never saw any. However, my curiosity led me to an official website that monitors orca attacks off the coasts of Spain and Portugal, and a few Facebook sites monitored by sailors heading through these waters. Sure enough, a handful of vessels were attacked right around the time we were passing through the Strait of Gibraltar. No one really knows why this population of orcas has taken to attacking boats. They usually go for the rudders, but have managed to completely sink some of the boats — not a fun experience for the sailors, I’m sure.

I never did see any marine mammals from the deck or windows of our cruise ship. The environmental officer assured me that they were always on the lookout for whales and dolphins and slowed and adjusted their course accordingly if any were spotted. He half-joked that they didn’t want to cruise into port with a dead whale lodged on the bulbous bow at the front of the boat, as has happened to others. Apparently, if a whale gets stuck on the front of a large ship, there is no way to dislodge it before it gets into port. Talk about a negative PR photo! I’m sure glad I didn’t get to see a marine mammal this way!

Pat Foster-Turley, Ph.D., is a zoologist on Amelia Island. She welcomes your nature questions and observations. patandbucko@yahoo.com