Conservation biologist Carl Safina came upon some remarkable, unexplainable stories of killer whale behavior toward humans in the wild while writing his latest book Beyond Words; What Animals Think and Feel. Carl is President of the Safina Center and is on the board of the Whale Sanctuary Project. The following stories are excerpted from his book.
“They Guided Us Through the Fog.”
Killer whales in British Columbia. Credit: Carl Safina
“When you lock eyes with them,” Ken Balcomb says, “you get the sense that they’re looking at you. It’s a steady gaze. And you feel it. Much more powerful than a dog looking at you. A dog might want your attention. The whales, it’s a different feeling. It’s more like they’re searching inside you. There’s a personal relationship that they set up with eye contact. A lot transmits in a very brief time about the intent of both sides. I’ve sometimes come away with a real ‘Wow!’ feeling. Like I’d just seen something above and beyond.”
Like what?
“In those looks I’ve felt,” he hesitates to say, “appreciated. But of course,” the scientist quickly adds, “that’s subjective.”
Appreciated?
Ken started the research that became the Center for Whale Research, his life’s work, way back in the 1970s. It was right after the courts ordered SeaWorld to stop catching baby killer whales.
“Within a year or so,” Ken says, “If someone in another boat started chasing the whales each time they surfaced, or began aggressively circling them, they would often come over and just stay around our boat. The whales understood that we weren’t going to be involved in high-speed chases. We weren’t going to be shooting any darts and tags. They saw,” says Ken, “that we were cool around them. Which implies, y’know, a consciousness of what’s going on.”
Could that consciousness encompass a sense of Ken’s good will? After everything they’d been through with the captures, could they have appreciated Ken? Enough to return a favor?
“As far as I can tell, they were guiding us. It was very touching.”
Ken has stories like this one: “For days we’d been following all three pods. They’d come in the Strait of Juan de Fuca, up the west side of San Juan Island, through Boundary Pass to the Fraser River, gone back down to Rosario, into Puget Sound, around Vashon Island, then back up here. One morning they were headed into a dense fog bank. We followed them. This was in the 1970s. No GPS or anything, just a compass.
We got lost down near the entrance to Admiralty Inlet; socked-in fog, about 25 miles from home. I knew the approximate compass bearing. We put away all the cameras and prepared to run. I started to head along that compass bearing at about 15 knots. We’d only gone for about 5 minutes when whales just came porpoising in from all directions until they were right in front of the boat. So I just slowed down and followed wherever they went. I had about half a dozen of them right in front of our bow at all times.”
Ken followed them 15 miles. When the fog opened, he could see his home island up ahead. “Well,” he says, “I do have the feeling that they knew absolutely that we had zero visibility. They knew exactly where they were. It was the year after the captures ended. They’d seen lots of boats and been subject to a lot of aggressive behavior. But there they were, and as far as I can tell, they were guiding us. It was very touching.”
Next – Page Two: It gets more touching. And much stranger.
All posts in this series are excerpted from Beyond Words; What Animals Think and Feel by Carl Safina.