Among the presentations at this year’s Superpod conference on San Juan Island, WA, was an introduction to The Whale Sanctuary Project by Dr. Lori Marino, in which she described the criteria for an authentic wild animal sanctuary, the kinds of expertise needed to achieve our vision, and the cutting-edge visitor education center that will be part of the sanctuary.
This was the fifth annual Superpod conference. The first, in 2011, was just an informal meet-up of about a dozen animal protection advocates, scientists, authors, moviemakers, and former SeaWorld trainers, who got together for a week on the island. (One of those present, incidentally, was Gabriela Cowperthwaite, who took the opportunity interview many of the people who would feature in the movie she was working on at the time: Blackfish.)
On a whale watching trip one morning, we were privileged to see a superpod – a gathering of all three extended family pods of the Southern Resident orcas. In their honor, we humorously called our own group the “Superpod”, and the group has met on the island every year since then. By now it has grown into a veritable Superpod: This year’s gathering – Superpod 5 – had more than 250 attendees and took over the local community theater for three days of presentations on topics ranging from conservation of wild salmon (the southern resident orcas’ only dietary item) to advocacy efforts on behalf of marine mammals in captivity around the world.
The conference had a large student attendance, and Dr. Marino worked with conference organizers Kim Ventre and Jeff Ventre to offer a full day of talks and discussions about how college and graduate students can use their education, training, skills and credentials to bring animal advocacy further into the mainstream.
A web search on “youtube Superpod 5” will take you to many of the other talks and discussions.