Another Fog Rescue
Page Two of some remarkable, inexplicable stories of killer whale behavior toward humans in the wild.
It gets, if anything, more touching. And much stranger. The fact is, killer whales seem capable of random acts of kindness. Acts that defy explanation. Acts that make scientists consider some pretty far-out possibilities. It can seem that killer whale behavior falls into two categories: amazing behavior and inexplicable behavior.
Researchers hoping to attach satellite tag to killer whale. Credit: Carl Safina.
Fog-guidance can seem like an exclusive service that killer whales feel inclined to provide – to people who work to protect them. Once, biologist and explorer Alexandra Morton and an assistant were out in the open water of Queen Charlotte Strait in her inflatable boat when she was enveloped by fog so thick she felt like she was, “in a glass of milk.” No compass. No view of the sun. Flat calm; no wave pattern to inform a guess. A wrong guess about the direction home would have brought them out into open ocean. Worse, a giant cruise ship was moving closer in fog so reflective Morton could not tell where its sound was approaching from. She imagined it suddenly splitting the fog before it crushed them.
“There are times when I am confronted with something beyond our ability to scientifically quantify.”
Then as if from nowhere, a smooth black fin popped up. Top Notch. Then Saddle. And then, Eve, the usually aloof matriarch. Sharky was suddenly peeking at her. Then Stripe. As they clumped close around her tiny boat, Alexandra followed in the fog like a blind person with a hand on their shoulder.
“I never worried,” she recalled. “I trusted them with our lives.”
Twenty minutes later they saw a materializing outline of their island’s massive cedars and rocky shoreline. The fog opened up. The whales left them. Earlier in the day the whales had been unusually difficult to follow, and had been traveling west toward open ocean. The whales had taken Morton south, home. When the whales left they changed direction toward where they’d just come from, where they had been headed.
Morton felt changed. “For more than twenty years, I have fought to keep the mythology of the orcas out of my work. When others would regale a group with stories of an orca’s sense of humor or music appreciation, I’d hold my tongue.
“Yet there are times when I am confronted with profound evidence of something beyond our ability to scientifically quantify. Call them amazing coincidences if you like; for me they keep adding up.
“I can’t say that whales are telepathic – I can barely say the word – but… I have no explanation for that day’s events. I have only gratitude and a deep sense of mystery that continues to grow.”
Next – Page Three: “The Strongest Energy I’ve Ever Felt.”
All posts in this series are excerpted from Beyond Words; What Animals Think and Feel by Carl Safina.