Center for Whale Research: The Largest Dolphin

Sunday, May 24, 2009

The Largest Dolphin

Photo by Kelley Balcomb-Bartok. The new young calf surfaces between K14 (background, born 1977) and her second offspring K36 (foreground, born 2003). K14's oldest offspring, K26 (male, born 1993) was also playful and tactile with the new calf.

Are Killer Whales true whales?
Yes - and no.
Killer Whales are actually dolphins. Very, very large dolphins...but technically speaking, they are dolphins. The nomenclature can get confusing and may seem counter-intuitive, and like Alice in Wonderland's experience when she tumbled down the rabbit hole, you might get a little dizzy trying to sort it out.
Biologists and taxonomists are meticulous and logical in the definitions, but most of us want simpler distinctions and to that end you might hear things like 'all dolphins are whales, but not all whales are dolphins' or 'anything over nine feet long is a whale'.
Throw porpoises into the mix, and you'll hear that 'if it has a beak, it is a dolphin, if it doesn't it is a porpoise'-- except not all dolphins have "beaks". So where do the Killer Whales fit?
Here is the simple answer: essentially, the Killer Whale has more in common with even the tiny Hector's Dolphin than it does with other whales such as the similarly sized Pygmy Right Whale. So they are considered dolphins - but because they are large cetaceans, we refer to them as whales.
It has taken over thirty years of careful research to dispel the myths that surround these alarmingly named animals. Given the unfortunate and potentially frightening moniker of 'Killer Whale', they have had a lot to overcome in the public eye, and it helps that the research shows that they are intelligent animals that remain with their families for life.
But that doesn't mean that Killer Whales are giant black and white versions of Flipper either. They are less friendly to us than Bottlenose Dolphins, and are unlikely to come to your aid if you are drowning (and if they did you would probably die of a heart attack instead of drowning!), or to save you from sharks as other dolphin species are reputed to do. Even though the whales don't harm us intentionally, it is easy to get into trouble in the marine environment, and any animal will take measures to defend itself when it feels threatened. Just the backwash of their hasty retreat in trying to avoid us could send a diver tumbling.
Our local Killer Whales deserve our respect, but not our fear or hatred. Call them what you will, they are remarkable and somewhat mysterious animals that increasingly require protection from us.
http://blog.seattlepi.com/candacewhiting/archives/168878.asp

- Candace Calloway Whiting
Volunteer, Center for Whale Research at Friday Harbor
http://blog.seattlepi.com/candacewhiting/bio.asp#bio151177

1 comment:

R.A.R. CloustonOctober 3, 2009 at 9:21 AM
I respect and admire disciplined, factual efforts on behalf of whales and dolphins. However, I respectfully submit that heightened public interest and concern can be achieved by blending fact with fiction. Please visit my website www.rarclouston.com or read my blog http://whaleanddolphintalk.blogspot.com/
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Some Background Information on the Orca Captivity Issue from Howard Garrett

"In 1965 a young male orca was captured in the town of Namu, BC. He was sold to Ted Griffin and towed in a pen to Seattle, where he was promoted extensively and made into a worldwide celebrity. Namu died after 11 months of captivity, but by then Sea World had captured their first Shamu from Puget Sound and the revenues from killer whale shows started a stampede to capture and sell orcas from Washington.

For ten years the captures were led by Don Goldsberry and Ted Griffin, who became public enemies after they tried to violently obstruct news coverage of their operations. They caught over 100 in that time, but claimed there were plenty of orcas here so the captures would make little difference on a population level. There was no science to dispute that until the mid-1970's when Canada and the US contracted with marine biologists Mike Bigg and Ken Balcomb, respectively, to conduct a survey to find out how many orcas there were in Washington and BC. They found only a few hundred, mostly north of Vancouver Island, meaning the captures had removed about a third of those resident to Washington waters.

Goldsberry, Griffin, Sea World, and the marine park industry in general disputed the scientists' findings and methods because they didn't like the results, and thus began a deep animosity toward field researchers on the part of the marine park industry. That dislike and disregard for the natural history of orcas that Bigg and Balcomb and many others revealed over the years became part of the marine park culture and continues to this day. The longevity of orcas, for example, was known from field research to be many decades longer than what marine parks told the public in their educational materials.

Needless to say, any organization that criticizes the captivity industry or that attempts to rehab, retire or release captives receives special scorn from the industry (which includes many people on Keiko's care team)."

"... and that's unfortunate because there could be some areas of agreement and cooperation if we could trust one another's information. But for those within the industry survival of the business is often more important than survival of the orcas, so rather than defend against these innuendos, unless there are disputed facts I'll try to give the background for the argument and leave it at that." From Comments by Howard Garrett