According to many generations of legends of Northwest Coast cultures, Orcas are our cousins, as on land wolves & their descendants have become our companions. In scientific, evolutionary terms, they have existed in the oceans as an intelligent, social species for 50 times longer than Homo sapiens. They were ruling this ocean planet when our ancestors were still monkeys, before chimpanzees & hominids diverged. Orcas & other Cetaceans are warm blooded mammals, like us, having evolved from land animals similar to what we know as hippos today.
Around the human universe, the Cetacean order has held a spiritual & magical significance since we first began telling stories around campfires. In Indigenous Australian cosmology, the whales & dolphins were there, are there in Dreamtime, in the never-ending primordial Grandmother ocean of life. We are intertwined in language, in music, in spirituality, in our social relations.
In reality, humans may not want to come to terms with the evolutionary evidence that Orcas, dolphins, whales are MORE intelligent, more evolved, more connected to the cosmos than we are. Their brains are much larger, have more processing power with entire higher perceptions than we can barely imagine, dimensional awareness & communication we are only beginning to understand.
Let me illustrate the profundity of what I’m referring to with a spirit/dream experience that happened to me here in the Pacific NW, in the San Juan islands. On a work crew, I was was among a group sleeping in a bunk house built on a long dock. In the middle of the night I had a lucid dream/otherworldly encounter that changed my entire outlook on my humanity, because in this dream world, I BECAME a young Orca male.
I was experiencing what the perception of an Orca was swimming amongst my family, in psychic communication & a dimensional sensing that can only be called supernatural, being able to see inside of other beings, out to the far limits of the ocean. There was a purpose to this experience: during which I was shot, by a human of course. The Orcas were communicating to me in real painful, excruciating experience of what humans have done to their world.
When I woke in a horrible state of revelation & disturbance, I really felt that I had been telepathically connected with this particular Orca family, when I went out on the dock they were there, swimming out in the bay. So then this experience is being passed on to you, the one reading this, so you can know what horror our human society in the age of projectile weapons has perpetrated on the cetacean nations. Nearly decimating entire species of the greatest, largest, most evolved beings on our planet for industrial economics & a kind of demonic supremacy verging on psychopathy, currently being carried out on all the other mammals on Earth.
Back when I was only a baby, but the Orcas had been here for more than 20 million years, the governments of the industrialists in the Pacific NW were machine-gunning Orcas to “protect fisheries.” You can read about that here, a story that backs up what the Orcas had enlightened my human brain to. “From machine-guns to save-the-whales” in which an Orca named “Moby Doll” was shot, then kept captive until it died of its injuries.
We have all been mourning the long, tragic life in captivity of Tokitae, having been captured here in the islands in a brutal & deadly round-up that the local pods haven’t ever recovered from. Sea Shepherd, Neptune’s Navy & other ocean warriors are facing off with bloody, inhumane, savage traditions in the Falklands, Iceland & Japan where entire pods of whales & dolphins are netted, then stabbed, sliced into while alive, butchered, or captured & sold for human entertainment & consumption. Beings who are highly sentient, social, superior to us in every way except deadly technology.
When I say our fates are intertwined, I mean that we are causing our own ending of existence in Nature, we are victims of a brutal society based on exploitation, killing, greed, cruelty, hard-heartedness & domination. All of these feature in the current dire situation in America, in which our society may descend into a Dark Age in a matter of months, over-run by a conspiracy of psychopaths & monsters from previous dark ages & holocausts.
Our understanding of Cetaceans today & connection to Indigenous values & histories offers humanity a way out of the darkness, a direct avenue of enlightenment, a measuring system which spans the entire planet & to future generations. Understanding our potential, that is the key, we are so much more powerful than the industrial wage-slave society wants us to know.
As well, our relationship to the oceans is key to changing our future & actually saving the resources our descendants will desperately wish we had made an effort to protect. The nations of the oceans & the nations of the land depend on the health of our Grandmother ocean, from which we all arose. There is no actual Aquaman to come to our rescue, but we can join Jason Momoa to support Surfrider, Greenpeace & Ocean Defenders Alliance to be the super-heroes we were born to be.
https://www.oceandefenders.org/
Tokitae, the Orca also known as Sk’aliCh’elh-tenaut by the Lummi Nation, has had her ashes returned to her home waters in a private ceremony. The Lummi regard her as a relative, and after her death and cremation, Lummi elder Raynell Morris brought her ashes back to Bellingham International Airport. The ashes are in a white cedar box with an image of her tail and her name, and they will be returned to the sea in a sacred water ceremony conducted by Lummi tribal members aboard a police boat.
https://marineconnection.org/captivity/
#tokitae #whales #orcas
On August 8, 1970, a group of men used boats, planes, and explosives to drive a large family of Southern Resident killer whales, including Lolita, also called Tokitae, into the shallow waters of Penn Cove, just north of Seattle. They ringed the panicked and screaming whales with nets, and used long sticks to push mothers away from their calves. Five whales drown in the nets. Seven babies were taken from their mothers, who cried out in distress as their calves were airlifted and shipped to marine parks. After the capture, the men filled the bellies of the whales that died with rocks and tied anchors to their tales, so they would fall to the deep unreported. But not forgotten.
At least 45 Southern Resident killer whales were captured and delivered to marine parks between 1965 and 1973. The population has never recovered.
Lolita’s family is the L25 matriline of the “L” pod of the Southern Resident orca community. Lolita’s mother is believed to be L25, Ocean Sun (estimated birth year 1930), who still resides with Lolita’s family swimming freely in the open waters where Lolita was captured.
In 2005, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) designated the Southern Resident orcas as an endangered species under the US Endangered Species Act. On February 4, 2015, Lolita was officially included in the endangered listing of the Southern Resident orca Distinct Population Segment (DPS) by NMFS. Lolita is the last surviving orca of 45 members of the Southern Resident community that were captured and delivered for display in marine parks between 1965 and 1973. At least 13 members of her family were killed during these brutal captures. Only Corky, a member of the Northern Resident orca community captured in 1969, who still lives at Sea World in San Diego, has been in captivity longer.
Just Heartbreaking. 💔
Orca entanglement in fishing gear
This year to date, 10 killer whales have been incidentally caught in Alaska by the Bering Sea and Aleutian Island groundfish trawl fisheries and in its annual longline survey for sablefish and groundfish.
In one of the incidents, one orca was released alive. NOAA Fisheries is currently analysing collected data from the other nine to determine the cause of injury or death and also to try to discover which population these whales belong to, by reviewing genetic information. The vessels involved were required to carry two trained NOAA Fisheries observers and as orcas are covered under the Marine Mammal Protection Act, vessel owners or operators must report all incidental mortalities and injuries of marine mammals that occur during commercial fishing to NOAA, to determine whether the animals were dead prior to being caught, or were killed/seriously injured by the fishing gear.
Fishing gear is the biggest single killer of dolphins and whales around the world. Thousands suffer or die daily as a result of entanglement, and some cetacean populations will be lost forever in the next few decades if these deaths continue.
https://marineconnection.org/orca-entanglement-in-fishing-gear/
**Social and Intelligent Beings**
Pilot whales are highly social animals, forging strong bonds within tight-knit, multi-generational groups called pods. Their intelligence shines through in their ability to use clicks and whistles to navigate and communicate underwater with one another, showcasing their advanced social structure and teamwork. (Via Capt. Paul Watson)
Faroe Islands Campaign:
**Why the Grindadráp Must End: Time To Stop** (warning: graphic image!)
Greenpeace International Report Reveals Shocking Extent of Threats to Ocean Health
Greenpeace Network calls for urgent protection under historic Ocean Treaty
Who Are the Climate Activists Dressing Up as Orcas?
The group brought the sea creature’s image to the recent Climate Week demonstrations in New York as well. The string of actions, including a September 15 protest at the Museum of Modern Art in which 16 people were arrested, corresponded with the United Nations Climate Summit (which President Joe Biden did not attend). In separate instances this week, one POP protestor was arrested while wearing a full-body orca costume, and another while wearing a killer whale hat.
“The action has a pretty heavy topic — our world is being destroyed,” the activist explained. “I think it was a source of joy and levity and brought some fun into the movement, which I think is such an important part of getting people to stay engaged.”
https://hyperallergic.com/846403/who-are-the-climate-activists-dressing-up-as-orcas/
Listen to the last song captive Orca Tokitae sang, a tune her mother taught her over 50 years ago
Lummi tribal members dance and sing songs during a celebration of life for Tokitae, at Jackson Beach Park on San Juan Island.
Listen to the last song Tokitae, the captive Orca sang, which her mother taught her
In all the coverage of Tokitae, the captive Orca who died at the Miami Seaquarium on August 18, perhaps the most heart rending detail was that Tokitae sang the songs her mother and pod taught her before she was captured in the Salish Sea in 1970, at age 4. She reportedly sang these songs her whole life in her tank in Miami.
On Sunday on San Juan Island, Lummi tribal members honored Tokitae’s life and what she meant to them. They played what is believed to be the last recording of her singing before she died, at age 57.
Tokitae’s song is a clear whistle, starting with four plaintive notes. It is sophisticated and beautiful and haunting:
Tokitae's last song
A recording of Tokitae singing a song her mother, L25, taught her before she was captured in 1970 at Penn Cove near Whidbey Island.
For those who wished for Tokitae’s return to her native waters as she grew older, there were small comforts that emerged after her death.
Orca Network Langley posted that as she began to struggle and move onto the next world, “her entire family was off the west side of San Juan Island in what these days is a rare gathering, with all three pods swimming up and down the island, socializing in a superpod.”
A superpod happens with the J, K, and L pods come together. Among the pod is L25, believed to be Toki’s mother. L25, also known as Ocean Sun, is believed to be 94 years old and the oldest living Southern Resident killer whale.
The Orca Network wrote, “This is often a cultural, social ritual to mark a significant event in their community, and we believe they were welcoming her home.”
They continued, “Toki is finally home, maybe not the way we wanted, but her family seems to know she is with them once again, in ways we may never comprehend.”
Tokitae was the last living orca of the 45 who were captured in in the late 1960s and 70s. They were sold to SeaWorld and other marine parks. Tokitae, captured at Whidbey Island’s Penn Cove in 1970, was sold to the Seaquarium for $6,000 in 1970.
Isolde Raftery @ KUOW.org
MICHELLE FOURNET WONDERS: How do we know whales would want to talk to us anyway? What she loves most about humpbacks is their indifference. “This animal is 40 feet long and weighs 75,000 pounds, and it doesn’t give a shit about you,” she told me. “Every breath it takes is grander than my entire existence.” Roger Payne observed something similar. He considered whales the only animal capable of an otherwise impossible feat: making humans feel small.
https://www.wired.com/story/use-ai-talk-to-whales-save-life-on-earth/
