Orca: How We Came to Know and Love the Ocean's Greatest Predator

by Jason M. Colby

Overview

Since the release of the documentary Blackfish in 2013, millions around the world have focused on the plight of the orca, the most profitable and controversial display animal in history. Yet, until now, no historical account has explained how we came to care about killer whales in the first place.

Drawing on interviews, official records, private archives, and his own family history, Jason M. Colby tells the exhilarating and often heartbreaking story of how people came to love the ocean's greatest predator. Historically reviled as dangerous pests, killer whales were dying by the hundreds, even thousands, by the 1950s—the victims of whalers, fishermen, and even the US military. In the Pacific Northwest, fishermen shot them, scientists harpooned them, and the Canadian government mounted a machine gun to eliminate them. But that all changed in 1965, when Seattle entrepreneur Ted Griffin became the first person to swim and perform with a captive killer whale. The show proved wildly popular, and he began capturing and selling others, including Sea World's first Shamu.

Over the following decade, live display transformed views of Orcinus orca. The public embraced killer whales as charismatic and friendly, while scientists enjoyed their first access to live orcas. In the Pacific Northwest, these captive encounters reshaped regional values and helped drive environmental activism, including Greenpeace's anti-whaling campaigns. Yet even as Northwesterners taught the world to love whales, they came to oppose their captivity and to fight for the freedom of a marine predator that had become a regional icon.

This is the definitive history of how the feared and despised "killer" became the beloved "orca"—and what that has meant for our relationship with the ocean and its creatures.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780190088361
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	03/02/2020
Pages:	408
Sales rank:	214,631
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Jason M. Colby is associate professor of environmental and international history at the University of Victoria. Born in Victoria, British Columbia, and raised in the Seattle area, he worked as a commercial fisherman in Alaska and Washington State. He is the author of The Business of Empire: United Fruit, Race, and US Expansion in Central America.

Table of Contents

Introduction
1. "The Most Terrible Jaws Afloat"
2. The Old Northwest
3. Griffin's Quest
4. Murray Newman and Moby Doll
5. Namu's Journey
6. A Boy and His Whale
7. Fishing for Orcas
8. Skana and the Hippie
9. The Scores at Pender Harbor
10. Supply and Demand
11. The White Whale
12. Penn Cove Roundup
13. Whaling in the New Northwest
14. Big Government and Big Business
15. The Legend of Mike Bigg
16. "All hell broke loose"
17. New Frontiers
18. Haida's Song
19. The Legacy of Capture
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

04/16/2018
Historian Colby (The Business of Empire) takes a revealing look at how the human view of orcas has changed, from considering them bloodthirsty monsters to realizing they are intelligent creature meriting protection from whalers, as well as ocean parks and aquariums seeking specimens to display. He explains that, in the early 20th century, Antarctic explorer Robert Scott’s bestselling journal solidified the animal’s image as a vicious killer, a view that supported multiple countries’ efforts to slaughter as many orcas as possible after WWII. The orca’s image only began to be rehabilitated in the 1960s, when live animals were captured and put on display, quickly becoming popular tourist attractions. The acquisition of orcas became a priority for venues like San Diego’s Sea World, which acquired the most famous one, Shamu. Colby persuasively contends that, despite legitimate concerns popularized by the 2013 documentary Blackfish, about the effects of captivity on orcas, the animals avoided extinction because their presence in accessible public venues enabled people to relate to them. At times, the amount of detail included bogs down the narrative, as in a section covering an aquarium owner’s early life, and other than the Blackfish controversy, the book is curiously light on developments in recent decades. However, for the many readers interested in the orca’s well-being, Colby has produced an originally argued and accessibly jargon-free consideration of a hot-button animal conservation issue. (June)

Publishers Weekly

"Detailed, determinedly even-handed and often fascinating."— Lucy Atkins, Times Literary Supplement

"Jason Colby's Orca...left me with feelings of gratitude for his hard work, admiration and envy for his skills as a historian and storyteller, and also some new hopes about the possibilities of writing about animals and history.....The characters, human and cetacean, are drawn with extraordinary empathy and care, and their experiences, hopes, and worries, as told by Colby, are powerful....The photographs, of which there are more than forty, are both exceptional and thoughtfully curated." — Nigel Rothfels, Humanimalia

"Timely ... Over forty oral history interviews, added to substantial archival and secondary research, allow Colby to weave a history that highlights the agency and complexities of orca capture and captivity ... This engaging book should garner a wide audience of academics and orca enthusiasts. The clear narrative and interesting stories moreover make it suitable for undergraduate courses in both Pacific Northwest history and environmental history" — Jen Corrinne Brown, American Historical Review

"Colby is an easy and engaging writer... He utilizes extensive interviews he conducted with many of the most colorful and important people involved in the story: those who captured whales, the promoters, fishermen, scientists, and the citizens and politicians who became involved in the fight to halt the capture." — Carmel Finley, Journal of American History

"This is an affecting book, personal and political all at once, and written by a scholar who has worked hard to recover and relay painful tales of the wild orcas that encountered humans and the humans that did the encountering. Nearly all those meetings began in panic and pain, most of it the whales', though some of it that of the men who came to believe they were doing the wrong thing wresting these breathtaking animals from their world, to deliver them to our own—which has been changed by the resulting episodes of captivity and captivation." — D. Graham Burnett, author of The Sounding of the Whale

"This fascinating history reveals what happens when humans became captivated by captive orcas. Colby poignantly locates the very origins of conservation in the tense, tender, and tragic relationships between humans and cetaceans. This finely textured social history of the Pacific Northwest opens up the story of how 'killer whales'—once cast as deadly pests—became popular attractions and emotional, intelligent 'orcas'." — Daniel Bender, author of The Animal Game: Searching for Wildness at the American Zoo

"With Orca, Jason Colby takes readers on a riveting journey. In a matter of decades, the Pacific Northwest's killer whales traveled from despised vermin to regional sweethearts. Their emotional passage revealed the true wildcard of wildlife management: navigating the swirling opinions of human populations. A timely book, Orca brings history to bear on a fraught relationship between two apex predators. Colby traces the rise in human affection for the whales but also the emergence of a cruel realization as audiences cheered captives' performances in aquariums across the globe. Love and fandom could kill and maim as efficiently as fear and contempt. In the end, it's unclear whether orcas benefited from the connection they forged with people." — Jon Coleman, author of Vicious: Wolves and Men in America

"Killer whales, or orcas—the apex marine predators—were once widely feared as dangerous vermin and were shot on sight. Yet over the past fifty years, a sea change in attitudes towards this remarkable animal took place, and today the species is a revered and cherished global icon of the wild marine environment. In this compelling book, Jason Colby chronicles this transition in our relationship with the killer whale and tells an enthralling story complete with drama and excitement. It is sure to be an important addition to the libraries of natural historians and whale enthusiasts alike." — John Ford, Pacific Biological Station, Fisheries and Oceans Canada

"Colby shines a light on how little we understand of these magnificent creatures. His book gives a glimpse into a mysterious yet strangely familiar world, brought to life in a story that's tragic, heartbreaking, and finally hopeful."—Foreword Reviews, Starred Review

"A good choice for serious fans of Pacific Northwest and marine history."—Kirkus

"A revealing look at how the human view of orcas has changed... Colby persuasively contends that, despite legitimate concerns popularized by the 2013 documentary Blackfish, about the effects of captivity on orcas, the animals avoided extinction because their presence in accessible public venues enabled people to relate to them... Colby has produced an originally argued and accessibly jargon-free consideration of a hot-button animal conservation issue."—Publishers Weekly

"Killer whales, also known as orcas, are idolized, loved, and even revered. Such sentiments, however, have not always been held toward this species, as historian Jason Colby reveals in his new book, Orca... Colby does an excellent job of framing these events within the larger environmental movement of the time, as well as placing them within the context of the nationalism that was spreading on both sides of the U.S.-Canadian border at the time."
—Robin W. Baird, Science

"[Told] with the depth and passion the topic deserves."—Seattle Times

"Immersive and dramatic... Colby demonstrates the speed at which societal attitudes can also shift the baseline of our expectations. In this age of extinction, with ongoing changes in ocean chemistry and physics, it is the potential for a sea change in public attitude that presents hope."—Nature

"An exceptional book and a significant contribution to the conservation of killer whales, Orca brings together a wealth of information and tells the stories of the captive whales and the people who pursued, cared for, and studied them - and ultimately fought for their freedom... It instantly takes its place as one of the best books ever written about the interactions between killer whales and settler society on the coastlines of B.C. and Washington State. It should be read by every whale enthusiast, naturalist, fishing guide, graduate student, researcher, marine resource manager, and politician on the Pacific coast."—Ormsby Review

"It is a story not just of the orca business, but also of the evolution of Americans' relationship to the oceans and marine life-the growth of marine parks parallels the shift from an extractive approach to the ocean, as mainly a source of fish, to a recreational one. It intersects, too, with the birth of the modern environmental movement in the 1960s and 70s."—New Republic

"[Colby] has produced an exhaustive, nuanced, essential account of the captures, unearthing a forgotten bit of Northwest history."—Literary Review of Canada

"A riveting behind-the-scenes 'tell all,' told from the perspectives of the individuals that witnessed this important period in our history. This book is a historical account of how an industry formed, nearly destroying the very commodity on which it depended, coupled with an infusion of science that helped us to better understand killer whale life history. Colby retells a tragic yet sobering story of the good and dark sides of the delicate relationship between humans and other sentient beings."—Eric L. Walters, Journal of Mammalogy

"Masterful... In this passionate and meticulous study, Colby convincingly argues that the turbulent business of capture and public display initially cultivated public fascination with orcas and eventually assured their legal protection... Through this poignant meditation on the personal, ecological, and political consequences of killer whale capture, Colby makes a significant contribution to the history of human-animal relationships."
—Pacific Historical Review

"A timely, readable account."—CHOICE

From the Publisher

2018-04-03
The history of Orcinus orca, from its days as both a cultural icon of the Pacific Northwest and a dangerous pest to marine fishermen and whalers to stardom as a performer at marine theme parks.Environmentalist Colby (History/Univ. of Victoria; The Business of Empire: United Fruit, Race, and U.S. Expansion in Central America, 2011, etc.) reports on one species and concentrates on one brief period of time, in contrast to Nick Pyenson's Spying on Whales, which looks with a scientist's eye at whales of all kinds in the distant past, present, and possible future. Colby's story is also focused on the human relationships with orcas. His history is filled with the names of the men who attempted to capture killer whales, those who met with increasing success, the entrepreneurs who capitalized on whales, and the names of the whales that were caught. Readers will meet Namu, Kandu, Skanda, Taku, Haida, Chimo, and, perhaps the most famous one of all, Shamu (a name given to many after the original). For decades, catching and selling whales was big business, and as captive display animals at places like Sea World, killer whales became public favorites for their spectacular performances and their strikingly handsome black-and-white coloration. Captivity also meant that scientists could study orcas in ways not previously possible. By the 1970s, the environmental movement had become a subject of mainstream politics, and activists took up the issue of whale conservation. The author delves into the conflicts over regulation as protestors tangled with businesses, scientists with fisherman, and fishermen with government officials. Anecdotes abound. The cast of characters is enormous, and readers may find themselves struggling to keep the names straight.A good choice for serious fans of Pacific Northwest and marine history but information overload for mere lovers of all the Shamus and their ilk.

Kirkus Reviews