Walter the Whale was a star
killer whale
The orca or killer whale (''Orcinus orca'') is a toothed whale belonging to the oceanic dolphin family, of which it is the largest member. It is the only extant species in the genus ''Orcinus'' and is recognizable by its black-and-white ...
(
orca
The orca or killer whale (''Orcinus orca'') is a toothed whale belonging to the oceanic dolphin family, of which it is the largest member. It is the only extant species in the genus '' Orcinus'' and is recognizable by its black-and-white ...
) when
keeping orcas in captivity had just begun. At that time, following the death of
Namu
Namu or NAMU may refer to:
*The North American Monetary Union
*Namu, British Columbia, a town in Canada
*Namu Atoll, an atoll in the Pacific Ocean
*Namu doll, a type of Pullip doll
*Yang Erche Namu, a Chinese singer and writer of Mosuo ethnicity
...
, the only other established star orca was
Shamu
Shamu (unknown – August 16, 1971) was a captive orca that appeared in shows at SeaWorld San Diego in the mid/late 1960s. She was the fourth orca ever captured, and the second female. She was caught in October 1965 and died in August 1971, aft ...
. "Walter the Whale" was the orca's advertised name at first,
[ but later she was renamed Skana.][
Walter was captured from K Pod of the Southern Resident Killer Whales by Ted Griffin, and shipped to the Seattle Public Aquarium. Soon the orca was trucked to ]Vancouver
Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the ...
in a rental
Renting, also known as hiring or letting, is an agreement where a payment is made for the temporary use of a good, service or property owned by another. A gross lease is when the tenant pays a flat rental amount and the landlord pays for a ...
arrangement with boat show producer Bob O'Loughlin.
At the 1967 Vancouver
Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the ...
Boat Show at the PNE (Pacific National Exhibition
The Pacific National Exhibition (PNE) is a nonprofit organization that operates an annual 15-day summer fair, 10-day winter fair, a seasonal amusement park, and indoor arenas in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The PNE fair is held at Hastings ...
) grounds, "a star was born by the name of Walter and the attraction helped the show...to an attendance record of more than 100,000." Walter "delighted...a legion of killer-whale watchers" and "made a lot of friends...among that group of men whose business is selling boats." Curiosity "about the background of killer whales" made the whale "the show's biggest draw."
When the Boat Show ended, the Vancouver Aquarium
The Vancouver Aquarium is a public aquarium located in Stanley Park in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. In addition to being a major tourist attraction for Vancouver, the aquarium is a centre for marine research, ocean literacy education, cl ...
bought Walter, who became their first orca since their capture of Moby Doll
Moby Doll was the first orca (killer whale) to survive in captivity for more than two days, and the second to be displayed in a public aquarium exhibit. The availability, for the first time, of a killer whale that could be studied at close quarte ...
.
Boat show producer Bob O'Loughlin's search for a killer whale
Even before the capture of Moby Doll
Moby Doll was the first orca (killer whale) to survive in captivity for more than two days, and the second to be displayed in a public aquarium exhibit. The availability, for the first time, of a killer whale that could be studied at close quarte ...
, Bob O'Loughlin had for years "hoped to display a live killer whale at one of his traveling sports shows," but he had failed in several attempts to catch one at Seattle
Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...
. In one of those attempts, one of O'Loughlin's men fired a tranquilizer dart
A tranquilizer is a drug that is designed for the treatment of anxiety, fear, tension, agitation, and disturbances of the mind, specifically to reduce states of anxiety and tension.
Etymology
Tranquilizer, as a term, was first used by F.F. Yonk ...
from a Seattle Police Department
The Seattle Police Department (SPD) is the principal law enforcement agency of the city of Seattle, Washington, United States, except for the campus of the University of Washington, which is under the responsibility of its own police department ...
helicopter and hit a young orca
The orca or killer whale (''Orcinus orca'') is a toothed whale belonging to the oceanic dolphin family, of which it is the largest member. It is the only extant species in the genus '' Orcinus'' and is recognizable by its black-and-white ...
with the dart. While that appeared to keep the orca relaxing at the surface, another orca perceptively knocked out the dart and pushed their podmate out of danger, according to Seattle Public Aquarium owner Ted Griffin.[Colby, p. 48]
Capture
Bob O'Loughlin, who had failed in his own capture attempts a few years before, was able to obtain an orca after Ted Griffin trapped 15 Southern Resident Killer Whales, probably all from K Pod, in Yukon Harbor in Puget Sound
Puget Sound ( ) is a sound of the Pacific Northwest, an inlet of the Pacific Ocean, and part of the Salish Sea. It is located along the northwestern coast of the U.S. state of Washington. It is a complex estuarine system of interconnected ma ...
on February 15, 1967. This was the first deliberate multi-orca capture, and marked the full transition of orca captivity from opportunistic novelty to commercial enterprise. In the following years, the demand would outstrip the supply of captured orcas.[Colby, pp. 103-104]
Griffin would take five of these captured whales to the Seattle Public Aquarium. Two were quickly sold to SeaWorld San Diego
SeaWorld San Diego is an animal theme park, oceanarium, outside aquarium and marine mammal park, in San Diego, California, United States, inside Mission Bay Park. It is owned and operated by SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment.
SeaWorld San Diego ...
. One remaining orca was rented to O'Loughlin.[Colby, p. 106]
Portland no-show
Ted Griffin had hoped to deliver a rented killer whale to the Portland
Portland most commonly refers to:
* Portland, Oregon, the largest city in the state of Oregon, in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States
* Portland, Maine, the largest city in the state of Maine, in the New England region of the northeas ...
Boat, Trailer and Sports Show, which opened February 17. Bob O'Loughlin, who was producing the show, built a tank for the whale. Corralling selected whales out of the 15 held in Yukon Harbor proved to be a long and difficult process, however. Griffin's first secured catch was "a nine-foot suckling calf" on February 24, two days before the Portland show ended. The Portland plan was dead for 1967, but the traveling Boat and Sports Show was about to move to Vancouver
Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the ...
, British Columbia, in March, and the rental agreement was continuing.[Colby, p. 107] (The next year, the Portland plan would be fulfilled with another orca from this capture operation—Kandu.)
Name
Before he had received a whale, "O'Loughlin's three children, ages 6 to 9, addecided on a name...Would you believe?—Walter the Whale."
At an estimated 16 feet, the orca chosen for the Vancouver
Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the ...
Boat Show was the largest and eldest of the five secured at the Seattle Public Aquarium, and the last to arrive, on March 4. Though O'Loughlin was already using the name Walter in advertising, there were some opinions this orca was female
Female (Venus symbol, symbol: ♀) is the sex of an organism that produces the large non-motile ovum, ova (egg cells), the type of gamete (sex cell) that fuses with the Sperm, male gamete during sexual reproduction.
A female has larger gamet ...
. Ted Griffin was quizzed, "Is Walter a Walter?" He said, "Frankly, we don't know yet. But it makes no difference to him if we call him Walter."
At the Vancouver Boat Show, March 10 to 19, 1967
Ted Griffin personally managed the whole rental
Renting, also known as hiring or letting, is an agreement where a payment is made for the temporary use of a good, service or property owned by another. A gross lease is when the tenant pays a flat rental amount and the landlord pays for a ...
operation, remaining with Walter throughout the Boat Show.[
During the 4-hour trip by truck from ]Seattle
Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...
to Vancouver
Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the ...
, attendants sloshed buckets of water over the orca to provide vital moisture. Just outside the PNE Agrodome
PNE Agrodome is a sports arena located in Vancouver, British Columbia. It was built in 1963 and holds 5,000 people or 3,260 when configured to use the hockey or lacrosse surface.
It annually hosted the provincial high school boys' 'AAA' basketb ...
, a tent was set up over a circular portable tank 34 feet across and eight feet deep. This was the orca's space for the Boat Show.
Following continual phone calls from irate citizens who didn't "want Walter to become another Moby Doll
Moby Doll was the first orca (killer whale) to survive in captivity for more than two days, and the second to be displayed in a public aquarium exhibit. The availability, for the first time, of a killer whale that could be studied at close quarte ...
or Namu
Namu or NAMU may refer to:
*The North American Monetary Union
*Namu, British Columbia, a town in Canada
*Namu Atoll, an atoll in the Pacific Ocean
*Namu doll, a type of Pullip doll
*Yang Erche Namu, a Chinese singer and writer of Mosuo ethnicity
...
," the SPCA
A Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) is a common name for non-profit animal welfare organizations around the world. The oldest SPCA organization is the RSPCA, which was founded in England in 1824. SPCA organizations operate i ...
took particular interest in the whale. An SPCA officer checked the tank and raised concerns over its size, and over the orca's separation from the other members of the pod. Daily inspections continued, but the SPCA took no other action.
Feeding was another issue. Griffin was trying to wean all the captured orcas onto dead herring,[Colby, pp. 106-107] and only fed Walter twice in a week to keep the orca hungry. Nonetheless, the Southern Resident killer whale
The southern resident orcas, also known as the southern resident killer whales (SRKW), are the smallest of four separate, non-interbreeding communities of the exclusively fish-eating ecotype of orca in the northeast portion of the North Pacific O ...
was reluctant to eat the food, and was force fed with a pump.
In these early days, the elaborate routines featured in later shows did not exist. Walter's show was given in an era when fishermen normally shot orcas. "Each hour, hundreds of sightseers filed into the tent, where Griffin gave a brief presentation about orcas, assuring listeners that the species was far friendlier than most believed. Visitors could then approach the pool, where the bravest could offer the whale herring and even rub his rubbery skin."[ The orca's future trainer Mark Perry in a 2013 interview recalled that "the water in the pool was dirty, making it hard to get a good look." "I don't know what was in it, but it was turbid and kind of crappy-looking," he told Jason Colby. "All you could see was the fin, like ]Moby Doll
Moby Doll was the first orca (killer whale) to survive in captivity for more than two days, and the second to be displayed in a public aquarium exhibit. The availability, for the first time, of a killer whale that could be studied at close quarte ...
." To be sure, it was fascinating to see an orca that close, Perry acknowledged, "but I also thought, at the time, 'this is really sad.'"[
On March 16, Vancouver's leading radio host Jack Webster broadcast Walter][ in "the first whale-to-whale ]telephone
A telephone is a telecommunications device that permits two or more users to conduct a conversation when they are too far apart to be easily heard directly. A telephone converts sound, typically and most efficiently the human voice, into e ...
call in history." ( The Province's photograph illustrates what phones looked like at the time.) At the other end of the line at the Seattle Public Aquarium were two younger podmates— Katy and Kandu. At first the call went badly, as only two nearby seals
Seals may refer to:
* Pinniped, a diverse group of semi-aquatic marine mammals, many of which are commonly called seals, particularly:
** Earless seal, or "true seal"
** Fur seal
* Seal (emblem), a device to impress an emblem, used as a means of a ...
responded. "But Walter was persistent...the three whales all began squeaking 45 minutes later," "chewing the fat like old buddies." The hour-long long distance call cost $150.
At the Vancouver Aquarium
The Boat Show turned out to be a prelude to a long career when the Vancouver Aquarium
The Vancouver Aquarium is a public aquarium located in Stanley Park in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. In addition to being a major tourist attraction for Vancouver, the aquarium is a centre for marine research, ocean literacy education, cl ...
did not want to let the rented star orca leave the city and bought Walter. The day after the Boat Show closed, the southern resident orca was trucked from the PNE grounds at Hastings Park
Hastings Park is a municipal park located in the northeast sector of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, in the Hastings-Sunrise neighbourhood. The park features several sports and recreation facilities, including Hastings Racecourse and Pl ...
to the Vancouver Aquarium at Stanley Park
Stanley Park is a public park in British Columbia, Canada that makes up the northwestern half of Vancouver's Downtown Peninsula, surrounded by waters of Burrard Inlet and English Bay. The park borders the neighbourhoods of West End and ...
.
The orca was assigned to the "outdoor porpoise pool," displacing its inhabitants. Although often referred to as porpoises, these were three Pacific white-sided dolphins. Later in the week, one of them, a female, was reintroduced into the tank as delphinid
Oceanic dolphins or Delphinidae are a widely distributed family of dolphins that live in the sea. Close to forty extant species are recognised. They include several big species whose common names contain "whale" rather than "dolphin", such as the ...
company for the orca, though being the quicker of the two, she was trained to eat at the opposite end of the pool to prevent theft of the orca's food. There was no knowledge in that era of the difference between mammal-eating transient orcas and fish-eating resident killer whales, but as it happened Walter, like all the orcas being captured in that period, belonged to the non-dolphin-eating resident ecotype
In evolutionary ecology, an ecotype,Greek: ''οίκος'' = home and ''τύπος'' = type, coined by Göte Turesson in 1922 sometimes called ecospecies, describes a genetically distinct geographic variety, population, or race within a specie ...
.
The Province's columnist Himie Koshevoy described the orca "issuing small mewing noises sounding like a kitten seeking comfort." The aquarium's assistant curator Vince Penfold donned a scuba
Scuba may refer to:
* Scuba diving
** Scuba set, the equipment used for scuba (Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus) diving
* Scuba, an in-memory database developed by Facebook
* Submillimetre Common-User Bolometer Array, either of two in ...
suit and welcomed the orca with lunch underwater, captured in the Vancouver Sun
The ''Vancouver Sun'', also known as the ''Sun'', is a daily broadsheet newspaper based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The newspaper is currently published by the Pacific Newspaper Group, a division of Postmedia Network. Published s ...
in one of the great early orca photographs. The Vancouver Aquarium staff had learnt a great deal from their time with Moby Doll
Moby Doll was the first orca (killer whale) to survive in captivity for more than two days, and the second to be displayed in a public aquarium exhibit. The availability, for the first time, of a killer whale that could be studied at close quarte ...
; with the more knowledgeable practices they implemented with Walter, the aquarium would be repaid with interest by this orca's extraordinary stardom. The whale was fed "100 pounds of fish, mostly ling cod
The lingcod or ling cod (''Ophiodon elongatus''), also known as the buffalo cod or cultus cod, is a fish of the greenling family Hexagrammidae. It is the only extant member of the genus ''Ophiodon. ''A slightly larger, extinct species, '' Ophi ...
and herring, in four daily feedings," illustrated in an intimate photograph with Terry McLeod, who had also been Moby Doll's trainer.
Walter is renamed Skana
Weighing approximately 3,000 pounds and "just under 15 feet" long, this orca was still immature, with a dorsal fin
A dorsal fin is a fin located on the back of most marine and freshwater vertebrates within various taxa of the animal kingdom. Many species of animals possessing dorsal fins are not particularly closely related to each other, though through c ...
that could not indicate gender. In Walter's new tank at the Vancouver Aquarium
The Vancouver Aquarium is a public aquarium located in Stanley Park in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. In addition to being a major tourist attraction for Vancouver, the aquarium is a centre for marine research, ocean literacy education, cl ...
, Vince Penfold reversed the gender problem he had had with Moby Doll
Moby Doll was the first orca (killer whale) to survive in captivity for more than two days, and the second to be displayed in a public aquarium exhibit. The availability, for the first time, of a killer whale that could be studied at close quarte ...
, whose "feminine" name had been given to a male orca. This time a "masculine" name had been given to a female whale prior to the Vancouver Aquarium's involvement. The assistant curator said, "With the clear water it was easy for a biologist
A biologist is a scientist who conducts research in biology. Biologists are interested in studying life on Earth, whether it is an individual Cell (biology), cell, a multicellular organism, or a Community (ecology), community of Biological inter ...
to make the distinction." This quickly prompted hopes for a pregnancy
Pregnancy is the time during which one or more offspring develops ( gestates) inside a woman's uterus (womb). A multiple pregnancy involves more than one offspring, such as with twins.
Pregnancy usually occurs by sexual intercourse, but ca ...
. The name Walter was not considered fitting, and after a contest with over 5,000 entries, the aquarium selected for her the name Skana.
Skana's immediate stardom
"Skana brought heady times to Vancouver
Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the ...
. From the moment she took her first turn in the pool, the young whale was the aquarium's prime attraction and an invaluable asset to the city's growing tourist industry. That first spring, Stanley Park
Stanley Park is a public park in British Columbia, Canada that makes up the northwestern half of Vancouver's Downtown Peninsula, surrounded by waters of Burrard Inlet and English Bay. The park borders the neighbourhoods of West End and ...
saw traffic like it never had before, with tourists and locals alike packing the aquarium. Then came the summer crush. In August alone, 119,746 people visited, bringing the year's total to 527,536—an 80 percent increase over the same period in 1966."[Colby, p. 116]
References
General references
*{{cite book , last=Colby , first=Jason M. , title=Orca: how we came to know and love the ocean's greatest predator , year= 2018 , publisher= Oxford University Press , location=Oxford , isbn=9780190673116
Individual orcas
Southern resident orcas