Center for Whale Research: April 2010

Friday, April 2, 2010

Name the next WA ferry "Tokitae"

Sponsored by:
Orca Network

The WA Transportation Commission is looking for suggestions for the 2nd new 64-car ferry (for the Keystone-Pt. Townsend run) now under construction (http://www.wstc.wa.gov/Naming/FerryNamingProposal.pdf).

Orca Network suggests that this ferry be named "Tokitae." ... Tokitae is a Coastal Salish greeting, used all around the Salish Sea, meaning "Nice day, pretty colors." Tokitae was also the name given to the orca captured at Penn Cove, near Keystone, in 1970 who is still alive in Miami at a marine park. Her clan, the Southern Resident Community, was declared endangered under the ESA in 2005. Orcas are the Washington State marine mammal and 2010 is the 4th consecutive year that June has been proclaimed "Orca Awareness Month" by the Governor.

Sign the petition here.
Signature goal: 1,000

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

Friday, April 2, 2010

Name the next WA ferry "Tokitae"

Candace Calloway Whiting