0:05

This past summer, I was in Alaska

0:07

and little coastal town called Seward.

0:10

A gorgeous spot on the Kenai Peninsula

0:13

tucked between the oceans and some

0:15

giant Malaysia covered mountains.

0:18

I was there looking for someone to

0:20

talk to about gray whale migration.

0:23

So I asked a friend in town for ideas

0:25

and he says, I don't know any gray whale people,

0:27

but there's a guy named Dan you should meet.

0:30

He told me that Dan was the killer whale

0:33

man in town, orcas. Might

0:36

as well I thought, so we gave Dan

0:38

a call and met him at my friend's place

0:40

to chat. Dan arrived

0:42

with a phone full of Orcas

0:46

Let's just say, what I heard

0:48

grabbed me right

0:49

away. Let's make these guys a total

0:51

deal.

0:56

I've heard the sound of orcas and other

0:58

whales before, mostly on TV documentaries,

1:00

but these were

1:01

different. All kinds of unusual

1:04

noises were coming out of his phone. It

1:06

was like these all because we're talking. From

1:09

a mile away, you can know which family

1:11

it is. And so it's kinda like Christmas,

1:14

like opening the package or what's in here, and

1:16

putting down that microphone and knowing which

1:18

pods are

1:19

around. As he played them,

1:21

Dan told me there's a lot more going on in

1:23

these clicks and whistles than you might think.

1:26

How their dialects, their

1:28

languages evolve and even

1:30

become part of Orca family

1:32

culture that's passed down. I

1:35

wanted to learn more.

1:39

Man, their ceremonies are beautiful. Their

1:43

dances and songs are

1:44

beautiful. They represent so

1:46

much. J

1:49

Julius is a tribal member near where I

1:51

live in the Pacific Northwest. And from

1:53

his perspective, there's something deeper

1:56

going on in the conversations among these

1:58

Orca

1:58

families. And all

2:00

honesty and all reality, Chris.

2:04

It's a story of grief.

2:10

The orcas story is one of human

2:12

misunderstanding and generational

2:14

trauma.

2:16

These creatures have been through a lot, especially

2:18

in the coastal waters of Seattle and Vancouver.

2:21

But

2:22

it's also a story of celebration, family.

2:25

And a sense of place. Exploring

2:28

their chatty underwater world might just

2:31

help us understand how they are communicating.

2:34

And what they're trying to say.

2:38

From KauW in Seattle, I'm

2:40

Chris Morgan. Welcome to

2:42

the wild.

3:05

Oh, man. It's good to see you. I'm glad

3:07

I'm glad that we pulled this off. It's the

3:09

next best thing to be in out on the water with

3:11

you among

3:12

the whales, I guess. So I'm here

3:14

with Dan Olsen. He's visiting Seattle

3:16

from Alaska, so we jumped on the chance

3:18

to meet up in person to hear more

3:20

of his recordings. I study

3:23

killer whales up in Alaska and Seward,

3:25

Alaska, Keeneack Yard's National Park and Prince

3:27

William Sound. Down spent a lot of time

3:29

at sea in Alaska, and down here in the

3:31

Puget Sound, teaching outward bound,

3:34

running whale watching tours, and

3:36

I've been studying kilowales since roughly

3:39

two thousand

3:39

four, two thousand six, particularly the dialects,

3:42

the acoustic the cars that

3:44

they make. When I met him in Alaska,

3:46

the first thing I noticed was Dan's

3:48

childlike curiosity for these

3:51

killer whales or orcas.

3:53

he's not new to this. He's been working

3:55

with a small non profit called the North

3:57

Gulf oceanic society for almost

3:59

twenty

4:00

years. We do a lot

4:02

of acoustics, which is my

4:04

passion, and

4:05

we have stations that listen all winter

4:07

long. These listening stations

4:09

are set up kind of like little mini recording

4:11

studios. Each of them has an underwater

4:14

microphone attached to them, a hydrophone that's

4:17

suspended about ten feet above

4:19

the ocean floor. And this hydrophone

4:21

can detect a kilowales call

4:24

from up to fifteen miles away.

4:26

It's called passive acoustic monitoring.

4:30

And most handy of all, once it's placed

4:32

down underwater, it can be left there

4:34

for months at a time, so it's listening.

4:37

Every single day of the year. Dan

4:40

tells me the story of how he got hooked on

4:42

this strange obsession Eavesdropping

4:44

on orcas.

4:47

One time I was running a tour and had a hydrofoam

4:51

down in the water.

4:52

And there was one animal that was breaching

4:55

and tail slapping. And

4:58

I put down the microphone and and made

5:00

a recording and and heard the

5:02

following calls. I mean, plan

5:04

for you and I hear these. So

5:15

I played this recording for

5:17

the researchers and they

5:19

immediately

5:20

said, oh, that's one of the eighty ones trying to get in

5:22

touch with the rest of its car. Just

5:29

plain listening to Dan's recording

5:31

of the whale's call, the Orcas

5:33

researchers knew exactly which pod

5:35

the killer whale belonged to. Out

5:39

of thirty different pods in the Gulf of

5:41

Alaska, that's over nine hundred

5:43

whales.

5:46

And I was like, no way, there's no That's

5:48

impossible. But then

5:51

it turned out I left ran

5:53

into two more, half hour later, all three

5:55

animals were together. And

5:58

that was the moment that I learned that you could

6:00

know the families by their

6:03

by their dialects.

6:04

Know the families by their dialects. At

6:08

the time, this was back in two thousand and

6:10

four. He was just dabbling, recording

6:12

the orcas whenever he had the chances of whale

6:15

watching guide. But since then,

6:17

he's become an expert on Orcas

6:19

in Alaska. So I know you've

6:21

got some Orca

6:22

calls, some sounds with you, what

6:25

if you go, what can you play for us? I have

6:27

this pod I have to play for you that's really

6:29

incredible. It's it

6:31

was the AE pod and they're kind of a funny

6:33

a pod to begin with. This pod

6:35

truly sounds like aliens.

6:47

Whoa. Yeah. Each

6:53

Orcas pod that Dan studies is named,

6:55

and each has its own family

6:57

call. So this alien sound

6:59

is one of a kind. It's only used by

7:01

members of the a e pod. These

7:05

are the sounds they're using to day connected

7:07

with each other.

7:14

There are other pawns that make

7:17

calls that may sound slightly similar,

7:19

but not exactly the

7:20

same. And Dan

7:22

tells me in the Orca world opposites attract.

7:25

So when Orca's are looking for suitable

7:28

mates, they gravitate towards

7:30

others with calls that are very different

7:32

from their own family calls. So

7:35

we think they mate with the sexy

7:37

foreign accent.

7:39

Really? They

7:41

might hear something miles away from a

7:43

a different part and we attracted to it. Yeah.

7:47

Scientists think it could be a way for orcas

7:49

to promote genetic diversity, looking

7:52

for mates from outside the immediate family

7:54

could help avoid genetic and breeding.

7:57

Researchers like Dan study

7:59

these calls and try to record

8:01

and remember each one of them because Once

8:03

he can recognize the song, he can

8:05

recognize the pod, and he

8:07

doesn't even have to see them to know that they're

8:09

around. Orcas

8:12

are extremely intelligent mammals.

8:15

Take their brains for example. They

8:17

are huge. They have the second

8:19

largest brain of any animal

8:21

in the world. The sperm whale takes

8:24

first place. Those brains

8:26

have significant folding and

8:28

twisting way more than our brains.

8:31

This increases their capacity for advanced

8:33

connections. Orchids also

8:36

have way more neurons in their brains

8:38

double the number we have. All

8:42

of this makes their cognitive capacity

8:44

almost impossible for us to even comprehend.

8:47

These are brains that are just wired

8:49

differently.

8:51

But Dan's got an analogy that helps us understand

8:54

how they see their environment. Imagine

8:59

for a second you're walking down through a park

9:01

and you you know those times you just

9:03

know a bird's flown over. You didn't see

9:05

the bird, but it flew between you and the sun.

9:08

And that change in lighting just for a sec. You

9:10

didn't even see the shadow, but the the lighting

9:12

from the sun just changed briefly for a minute.

9:15

As these kilobils are swimming, you have

9:17

you have noises, beaches, all

9:19

the way around them, and then one of their family

9:22

member swims in between them in

9:24

a sound source and makes a little bit of a shadow

9:26

like

9:26

that. And so their spatial

9:28

awareness is off the hook. That's

9:30

fascinating when when the next bird to fly

9:32

across

9:33

the sun, I think of it in a whole different way.

9:35

That's really cool.

9:40

What's the next one you got? That was one

9:42

of my favorite recordings to listen to.

9:44

I fall asleep to this. You can hear Echo

9:46

location. And then some sporadic

9:48

calls

9:49

from the a j's. You like the

9:51

the Orca d j done? You

9:53

ever thought of a t shirts or

9:55

something like that? And

9:58

again, these are family calls that

10:00

belong to that family. That

10:12

sounds so difficult.

10:14

Part of what may sound like about you is actually

10:16

equal location to hearing it. Oh, yeah.

10:18

That's not the engine. So

10:24

the top top top top top top of them

10:26

hunting. Yeah. Echo

10:42

location is something you've probably heard of

10:44

in whales, bats, and

10:46

other species. Dan describes it

10:48

as how an orcas gains information,

10:51

perhaps about each other, from the echoes

10:54

that bounce back. It's how they

10:56

hunt fish. They might even be able to

10:58

tell if a family member has broken bones

11:01

or is pregnant, basically

11:03

highly advanced spatial awareness.

11:07

But when it comes to communicating with each

11:09

other, they create the other sounds, the

11:11

ones that sound like this. All

11:19

the sounds for echo location and

11:21

for calls to each other are created by

11:23

lips in their blow

11:24

hole. So inside the

11:27

blow hole, can imagine all the two wells just

11:29

have one blow hole that bailing wells

11:31

have two. Inside the one blow

11:33

hole, you still have two nasal passages.

11:36

Inside their nasal passages, they have sets

11:38

of fleshy lips. And

11:41

if you think about playing

11:44

making a buzzing sound out of your lips

11:46

like What about that? It's

11:49

Probably physically Good. Probably

11:51

physiologically similar to

11:52

that. And because they have two sets

11:55

of lips, they're able to make two

11:57

different sounds. At the same

11:58

time. That's called a bifonic cool.

12:01

We can play with those for you. It's really

12:03

interesting. Now, there's a there's a family specific

12:06

call. And it's a bifonic

12:08

call meaning one animal is making

12:10

a low frequency and a high frequency call

12:13

at the same time. Wow.

12:24

That sounds like a dolphin. It

12:27

is a dolphin.

12:34

That's one animal making. No. High

12:36

and the low bit. The

12:40

high and low frequency these help walkers

12:42

stay in touch when there are ships

12:44

around, a huge factor that

12:46

disrupts whale communication. It's

12:48

a bit like having to shout over the din

12:50

and a noisy pub. The low frequency

12:53

goes out in all directions,

12:55

and the high frequency only goes out forward. So

12:57

if I'm facing you, you hear both.

12:59

If I'm facing away, you

13:02

only you only hear the low frequency bit.

13:04

So a a calf listening to its mother would know,

13:06

if she's facing it or facing

13:08

away. You were

13:08

just doing that with the mic. It's like, so so here,

13:10

you sound sort of deep and resonant. And then if

13:13

I was to turn

13:13

away from the from the mic, can

13:15

Right. And they would still hear the low frequency call,

13:18

but not the high frequency call. Not

13:20

to mention then high frequency with

13:22

a very short wavelength absorbs in

13:24

plankton quickly and it doesn't

13:26

travel as far. So the low frequency travels

13:29

a long ways. The high frequency doesn't. So

13:31

this two tone call allows all

13:33

these different ways

13:35

for the calves and mothers to stay in touch

13:37

and and know where everyone is and how far away

13:39

they are. It's

13:48

important for the calves and mothers to stay

13:50

in touch because orcas live in a

13:52

matriarchal society. The

13:54

females are in charge, they hold

13:56

the primary power positions and

13:58

have the authority. Orcas

14:02

share calls from generation to generation

14:05

through the mothers and grandmothers. In

14:07

this way, they create a family

14:09

culture. Just like in humans,

14:12

the things that we learn in a society over

14:14

long periods of time, they

14:16

teach They pass on knowledge,

14:19

voices, sounds, down

14:22

through the generations. I've

14:28

got a couple clips that show a

14:30

mom calling first and then

14:33

a calf imitating afterwards, which

14:35

shows how how they learn the calls, but also

14:38

just it's cute.

14:39

Oh, I love that. Yeah. Let's hear that. And course,

14:41

these are important calls. They're the calls that belong

14:43

to the family only, so to maintain cohesion

14:45

with the whole pod, the whole family. You

14:48

have to perfect that call and make

14:50

it like your mother makes

14:51

it. So we'll listen to some of these. Again,

14:53

you're gonna hear the mother first and then the

14:55

calf imitating the call. How

15:04

cute is that?

15:04

It's so sweet. Can you

15:07

do that again? Yeah.

15:08

Here's another 10I

15:16

can listen to that all day. The

15:18

cause of pods can evolve over time

15:20

with these really subtle changes. Sometimes

15:23

it's just the little details that

15:25

matter. We had a pod called

15:27

the eight k pod that swam

15:29

together in the early nineties and been swimming

15:31

separately now. And so now

15:33

you have the 8K2 pod and 8K6

15:35

pod. The eight k twos do

15:37

this. That

15:40

swoops out at the end, and the 8K6 is

15:43

doing a

15:45

little hiccup at the end. And that

15:48

difference appears to be consistent over the last

15:50

five or ten

15:51

years. And so it's cultural evolution

15:53

of that call. It's what we call cultural drift.

15:58

Cultural drift, or a

16:00

cultural change over time. The

16:02

grandmothers from the original part were one

16:05

sisters they swam together.

16:07

But when each grandmother split up

16:09

into two separate pods, the

16:11

call that they once shared slowly

16:14

evolved into two slightly different

16:16

cores, which were then

16:18

passed down to the calves in that pod.

16:20

The calves and each family mimicked

16:23

their mothers and grandmothers solidifying

16:25

the new versions of each call, continuing

16:28

the family voice.

16:32

They're no longer swimming together with their great

16:34

grandmother, grandmother to mimic those calls.

16:37

Now they have their own grandmothers

16:39

who used to be cyst or or our sisters,

16:42

but don't swim together anymore. Those

16:44

calls get

16:46

get slightly divergent. That's interesting.

16:49

I have American kids Right?

16:51

And they both have very American accents

16:53

as opposed to mine, right, you know, as an immigrant.

16:55

And but my son, every once

16:57

in a while, will pop into bit of an English accent

17:00

from it, you know. But he's that next generation of

17:02

losing that. And if he was to have kids,

17:04

it would all get watered down on down the tent through

17:06

the

17:06

generations. Similar is it? orcas.

17:08

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Sure. It sure

17:10

is. It's part of this this traditional

17:13

learning through generations is maintained. By

17:16

the survival of a a mother, grandmother.

17:34

So not only did the grandmothers and mothers

17:36

pass down their family calls, but

17:39

they passed down other pieces of their family

17:41

cult or kinds of information that's

17:43

critical to their survival, like

17:45

grandma knows where the best salmon spots

17:48

are, where places are safe or

17:50

dangerous. Have to behave

17:52

in certain situations.

17:57

It's actually been shown that If

17:59

you have a calf born into a pond,

18:03

if that calf's grandmother is

18:05

still alive, the survival

18:07

rate is higher than

18:08

it. Grandmother's not around anymore.

18:13

When a grandmother orcas can live up to eighty

18:15

years, There's a lot of information

18:17

that's passed down.

18:24

I was raised by my grandma.

18:27

Her name was Snana, and my grandfather

18:29

was

18:30

Wacham, which is a name

18:32

I carry now. Jay

18:34

Julius is a member of the Lummy Nation,

18:37

the people of the sea. Back

18:39

home, here in Washington State, There

18:41

is another perspective to explore. One

18:44

is very different to Western science. From

18:46

those who have shared these waters

18:49

with orcas for thousands of

18:50

years. Do you think there is

18:52

some kind of connection between co

18:55

sale ish people, lummy peoples,

18:57

knowledge, and memories of this place,

18:59

and the memory that orcas have as well.

19:01

Most definitely. Without a doubt.

19:04

Without a doubt, our story is their story.

19:07

Their story is our story.

19:11

What is this shared story between

19:13

the indigenous peoples and orcas

19:15

here? Just what is being

19:17

passed down. It's a connection

19:20

we'll explore after the break.

19:30

I've never been here

19:31

on, William. You've

19:34

seen it renewal to plenty of times, but

19:37

I've never driven on Orcas but

19:39

I know every beach.

19:41

I know I've I've I've walked

19:43

it. I've fished it. We're

19:47

at Laraby State Park overlooking

19:49

Bellingham Bay as a member of the

19:51

Lummy tribe. Jay has spent time

19:53

in these waters among the orcas ever

19:55

since he was two years old. I've

19:58

fished side by side in my family for

20:00

couple of hundred generations. His fish side

20:02

by side with Khutthalmadin in

20:04

our language means killer whale, Orcas,

20:07

whatever English calls it. There

20:09

are relations under the

20:10

sea, our relatives under the water. Could

20:13

you say the name of them again in your language?

20:15

Khothamics, can can I try that?

20:17

Yeah. Absolutely. Man,

20:29

their ceremonies are beautiful. Their

20:32

dances are beautiful. Their

20:34

songs are beautiful. Mhmm. They represent

20:37

so much there. If we

20:39

can only

20:41

we always wanna understand a little bit more as

20:43

human people but we can see

20:45

it. We can feel

20:46

it. Do you

20:48

feel like their cultures and traditions are similar

20:50

to yours? Absolutely. And we learn

20:52

a lot from them. Our ceremonies include

20:55

giving thanks for salmon, making

20:57

sure the salmon are pointed north where they were

20:59

going as we fillet them and enjoy him.

21:03

Our monuments include, kutham,

21:06

salmon, woman,

21:08

mothers, And the mothers

21:10

lead their tribe. Right? The mothers are the

21:12

matriarchs and of the

21:14

pods. So, yeah, absolutely

21:16

similarities.

21:23

I can tell though for Jay There's

21:25

another layer beyond the similarities

21:28

his people share with orcas, like

21:30

the food they eat, and there's strong

21:32

family bonds that span generations.

21:35

There's something else,

21:38

something deeper. I can

21:40

sugarcoat it with beautiful stories

21:42

of yesterday. But in all

21:44

honesty, and when you think about

21:46

it, and and we stop looking at

21:48

them as this magnificent being

21:51

in the water, but we few of them

21:53

as, you know, something that is

21:55

a family and might be underwater in

21:57

a different world. Their

21:59

story is exactly the same. Their traumas

22:01

are are exactly the same. Their

22:04

existence is held

22:06

up by a fine line right now. And

22:10

that's our reality. I'm on the brink of

22:12

extinction.

22:14

And and it may not sound okay to

22:16

hear that. But when the salmon disappear,

22:18

I disappear. And

22:23

the salmon are disappearing in an

22:25

around puget sound. The Salish Sea.

22:28

And because of that, the southern resonant

22:31

Orcas population is in trouble.

22:33

They've been on a dramatic fine for twenty

22:35

years. Today, there are only seventy

22:38

three of them left. One

22:41

factor is that as the ocean warms

22:43

Shinnock Salmon habitat is moving

22:45

north. But the pods don't automatically

22:48

know to follow the fish and perhaps

22:50

they don't want to. They belong here,

22:53

where they have like a cultural

22:55

sense of place. It

22:57

makes me wonder, What do the mothers

23:00

and grandmothers tell their calves about

23:02

staying put? About

23:04

staying in a place that's overcome with dangers?

23:07

But rooted in thousands of years

23:09

of history. It's

23:12

a fascinating thought, isn't it you know that a mother might

23:14

be communicating something different to her calf

23:16

these days than she might have done fifty years ago

23:18

in her life.

23:20

Right? The dangers and

23:22

the pitfalls and how to be

23:24

around humans or avoid humans or

23:26

where you say for where you're

23:27

not. It's a changing world for them and and

23:29

humans and they still avoid places.

23:33

They avoid days where they

23:35

were rounded up. Yeah. Absolutely.

23:38

That communication takes place.

23:44

In humans, it's called inter generational

23:47

trauma. When the survivors of a traumatic

23:49

event passed down their trauma to

23:51

future generations. It begs

23:54

the question if it is true of these emotionally

23:56

intelligent whales too.

23:58

Orcas are known

24:00

to suffer trauma, their cortisol levels

24:03

have proved it. And scientists

24:05

don't know if they pass that trauma on

24:07

down through the generations. But

24:09

if they do, it's this population

24:11

that might show it. Research

24:14

has revealed that orcas have parts of

24:16

their brains that are more physically developed

24:18

than human brains. And those are the

24:20

parts of the brains that have to do with language.

24:23

Emotion, and memory. The

24:29

sixties and seventies brought unimaginable

24:31

trauma to the Orcas dozens

24:33

of them were captured. In

24:36

the summer of nineteen seventy, a group

24:38

of aquarium owners rounded up more than

24:40

eighty orcas in a place called

24:42

Penkov, not far from Seattle, they

24:45

separated the young Orcas from

24:47

their mothers. orcas

24:49

drowned in the nets. Seven

24:52

were captured and put into captivity for

24:55

display in aquariums. And

24:58

some of those separated from their families were

25:00

the grandmothers, the ones who passed down

25:02

the family culture. All

25:06

of the orcas captured in Penkov that

25:08

summer died within five years.

25:12

Except for one Her

25:20

name is Tocatine. Or Scally

25:23

Chuck Tannott in the Lomi language. She

25:25

lives in Miami at this aquarium where

25:27

she was sent over fifty years ago.

25:31

She learned this song from her mother as a baby,

25:33

and she's still singing it decades

25:36

later. Those

25:58

places where the whales were rounded

26:00

up and cars taken into captivity,

26:03

Jay says they still stay away from

26:04

them. To this day. So,

26:07

yeah, they they remember. And

26:09

when you experience a trauma as

26:11

a nation, as a tribe, as

26:14

a people. And I'm talking you too

26:16

in the audience. When you experience

26:18

something, subconsciously

26:21

something happens and and

26:23

it's passed down, and the memories are passed

26:25

down, and the trauma is passed

26:27

down.

26:29

Jay says the trauma that he sees the

26:31

orcas experiencing is the same thing

26:33

his own family members went through,

26:35

not that long ago. Starting

26:38

with the arrival of European settlers in

26:40

the west.

26:42

My uncles and ants went to boarding schools

26:44

in Oregon.

26:45

I don't

26:45

know if you can imagine your kids whether you like

26:47

it or not being stripped from you as

26:49

a father and a mother by

26:51

the age of five and and

26:54

you're not being able to see him again. And

26:56

while they're gone, they're not allowed to speak the

26:58

language you speak. They're not allowed to believe

27:00

what you have taught them and what has been

27:02

of your life since the beginning of time.

27:05

So it's similar.

27:12

Coming into this conversation with Jay

27:15

orcas, I wasn't expecting

27:17

a story of grief and trauma.

27:20

But that's because I've not been part of a culture

27:22

that's shared all of this deep history

27:25

in this place with the whales.

27:27

The bad and the good. Jay

27:33

tells me about a moment he had with his

27:35

grown daughter recently. They were leaving

27:37

by boat to their seafood market on a

27:39

nearby

27:40

island. We're on our

27:42

way out and she says, have you seen my

27:44

spirit animal? And I said, Actually,

27:47

I haven't. I haven't seen them

27:49

lately, which was where we're gonna see them today.

27:51

There were some other boats out there, including

27:54

some whale watching boats and all of a sudden,

27:56

they all turned around and started moving

27:59

towards Jay's boat. A

28:01

moment later, he looks down into the water

28:03

and there's an Then

28:05

another and another right

28:08

up under the bow of his boat. And

28:11

they pause and peer

28:12

up. My daughter's standing up top

28:15

and videoing, and it turns

28:17

its head and looks up at her really

28:19

slowly and goes down and

28:21

she starts crying quietly and

28:24

I think everybody

28:26

including myself and obviously my

28:28

daughter, we say the same thing. It's

28:31

just, oh my god. Wow.

28:40

It strikes me that there's like an unspoken

28:42

language between j and the orcas,

28:46

one that seems as hard to describe and

28:48

understand as the language of the orcas

28:50

themselves.

28:53

They've taught us how to fish. They

28:56

teach us community. They

28:58

teach us Love,

29:02

the teachers had a grieve, and

29:05

they belong here. I may be

29:07

indigenous to this place. But I

29:09

don't uh-uh. I

29:12

don't belong as

29:14

they

29:14

do. Through

29:19

his recordings, Dan Olson understands

29:21

the family bonds too and how

29:23

those bonds could help all of us relate

29:25

to orcas.

29:28

Part of the mission for me is is

29:31

to help people understand

29:33

that these aren't just random animals doing random

29:35

things. These are families with life

29:37

stories and experiences and

29:39

trauma and and successes and joy

29:42

with each other and their families.

29:44

Perhaps things to share. Something

29:47

Dan also ponders as he listens

29:49

to their

29:49

calls. That

29:51

would be an interesting thing to know as if they

29:53

had something to say to us. What would

29:55

it be?

29:58

Have to imagine they

30:00

would ask us if

30:02

we could fight a little bit harder because they don't have

30:04

a

30:04

voice. They can't communicate with

30:07

the human species that are creating these

30:12

this genocide on their people in

30:15

sixteen decades. Lincoln and

30:17

I, their world is just

30:22

gone. It's

30:35

a few days later, and I'm in

30:37

my office. I can see the bay from here

30:39

near where the orcas spend time. And

30:42

I can see the lumbination reservation where

30:44

Jay lives. Since

30:46

talking to him and Dan, Orcas

30:49

stories seem to be everywhere. Everyone

30:51

I meet seems to wanna tell me their

30:53

killer whale experience. It's

30:55

been really strange. But

30:57

in some ways, not surprising. We

31:03

know for a fact that orcas are talking

31:05

to each other, but maybe

31:07

they are talking to us too.

31:10

Perhaps it's time for us to listen. To

31:12

really listen. There's so

31:15

much to be gained by communicating with

31:17

empathy and consideration. Maybe

31:22

that's what the orcas are trying to tell us.

32:19

Special

32:22

thanks to Deborah Giles, Julie Trimmingham

32:24

and Mike Stewart. The wild

32:27

is inspired, not just by nature,

32:29

but by the people who work in it,

32:31

love it, protect it. Check

32:33

out our Instagram at the wild pod, and

32:35

you can find me at Chris Morgan Wildlife.

32:39

The Wild is production of KUW in

32:41

Seattle and me, Chris Morgan, with support

32:43

from wildlife media. Our producers

32:45

are Lucy Souchak and Matt Martin.

32:48

Jim Gates is our editor. A

32:50

very special thank you for the kind financial

32:52

support to Jill and Scott Walker, Rose

32:55

Latwin, Alan Ferguson, Anna

32:57

Kimball, John Taylor, Paul

32:59

Lister, Mark Wilkins and Rebecca

33:01

Badger, Bob Yella Lisa, Barbara

33:03

Stalmann, and Annie Meijs. Our

33:06

production team includes one Pablo Chiquiza,

33:09

April Craig, Mikaela Gianotti

33:11

Boyle, Kara McDermott, to

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your Papescu, Darcy Regan Schmidt

33:15

and Brandon Sweeney. Our theme

33:17

music is by Michael Parker. I'm

33:20

Chris Morgan. If

33:22

you enjoy the wild, please spread the

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word. We tell these stories to reach

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and inspire as many people as possible.

33:29

Thanks so much for listening and take good

33:31

care. This

33:56

is Chip Brantley, co host of the NPR

33:58

Podcast's White Lives. Before we

34:00

found the man in Vancouver, before

34:02

we sued the state department, Before we

34:05

snuck into the graveyard of a federal penitentiary,

34:07

all we had were the photographs, photographs

34:10

of a group of Cuban men standing on the roof

34:12

of prison in rural Alabama. That's

34:14

the season on the NPR orcas, White

34:17

Lies.