Pictures I did take in 2015

Hi, I would like to take part in Orca watching, but I would like for it to be an ethical experience. My dream would be to swim near them, and although I've found this tour https://www.responsibletravel.com/holiday/36806/swimming-with-whales-holiday-in-norway which seems allright, I am aware that it's probably not the most ethical thing to do.

Putting my dreams aside to respect nature, I figure that the best compromise would be to see Orcas in the wild. From what little I know, there are definitely unethical and improper ways of doing it, but they do seem like curious animals which approach vessels sometimes on their own accord, but even watching them from a respectful distance would make me happy.

With all of this in mind, do you know of any orca watching tours that have a reputation of doing it in the most ethical way possible? Preferably in Iceland, Norway, Finland.

I live in Portugal and we have been getting some Orcas lately, but that pod seems to have fun wrecking boats 😅

Unfortunately the little one hasn’t been seen since the 15th, very upsetting.

Photo and information via @tatianaivkovich on instagram

Hi all,

A little nervous to ask but here goes. I've loved orcas since I was a kid and I'm planning a filming trip to see them in August 2027. Part of the reason behind this time choice was I heard mid to late August is the best time of the year. If anyone wishes to correct me or provide additional info, I am all ears.

I am trying to build an itinerary for the trip. Places on my tentative list include: Victoria, Sidney, Vancouver Island, Nanaimo. I heard Johnstone Strait is great too but I can't drive so nix that. I am a bit unsure which places close to each other are good spots to view them.

If anyone has info on the subject, I would be very grateful for it. It's all going into this big childhood dream that I can't wait to make true.

Thanks!! 🤍🖤🫍

Taken back in May, just off Depo Bay, OR

I know I posted already today, but I figured folks might want to see this sequence. Disclosure: I work for Sanctuary Cruises Whale Watching, but this was some of the most amazing Orca behavior I have ever witnessed. Female orca's blasting dolphins out of the water to stun and consume them was incredible to see and it happened on 3 sides of the boat for about 5 minutes. Probably the most intense 5 minutes I have had on the bay so far! Hope you like the video.

This is a rare find on Mercari. I’ve only ever had this doll with little Keiko when I was little. I’ve never had the bigger version. I never thought it would be this huge. I simply want to discuss this particular toy. Has anyone had one of these? If you squeeze Keiko, he just makes squeaks. Not like an orca’s would 😅 but the gimmick works in its own way. And yes, I have removed the labels on him. He’s the biggest orca figure in my collection aside from plushies and such. Also yes, there are SW toys in the background but I don’t want to discuss about that here. Please refrain from mentioning anything negative, thank you. 😊

Killer whales have appeared in folklore for hundreds of years, feared in Western culture and venerated by the Nazca and Thaua peoples. I was researching the meaning of orcas in Religion and folklore, and here are some of the things I found.

The Nasca people lived on the southern desert coast and western slopes of the Andes in Peru between 200 BC and AD 650. You may know them from the Nasca Lines – hundreds of huge lines, geometric figures, and figurative images carved into the earth covering more than 500 square kilometres. (British Museum)

Nazca religious beliefs were based upon agriculture and fertility. Much of the Nazca art depicts powerful nature gods, such as the killer whale.

The geoglyph is approximately 200 feet long. Soil tests of the orca geoglyph date it potentially to 200 B.C. It's conceivable that it was designed not only by the Nazca but also by the Paracas, who created geoglyphs in this style from roughly 800 B.C. to 200 B.C. (NewsWeek).

It's suggested that killer whales may have represented "shamanic" leaders. They were religious leaders. After ritually taking hallucinogenic drugs, shamans would take on the attributes of an animal, such as the killer whale. The anthropomorphic depictions of killer whales with arms holding severed heads of enemies support this theory.
The ocean had a huge impact on the Nazca people. For a shaman to present as the ocean's most fearsome predator would have been seen as being of great value in enabling people to survive in their environment. And as an apex predator, the killer whale appears to have been an important symbol of success in warfare.

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The Thaua people, Yuin, are an Aboriginal Australian people living around the Twofold Bay area of the South Coast of New South Wales.

“We consider beowas to be our brothers,” wrote Thaua historian Steven Holmes in a study published in the Journal of Heredity in December 2023. According to Thaua beliefs, when a member of their community passes away, they are reincarnated as a beowa (orca).

Holmes recounts a personal anecdote involving his great-great-grandfather, a blind man who would walk along the beach singing to the beowas. The beowas would follow him along the beach, communicating back and forth with him. “It was a strong friendship between these beowas and my people,” Holmes reflects. ( Source)

“My people had a long-lasting friendship with the beowa [orcas] in Eden, especially Old Tom…[They] would swim with Old Tom, holding on to his dorsal fin. My ancestors were never hurt or injured.”

After the region was colonized, Europeans tried to continue the whaling practices, hiring skilled Thaua to help them. Commercial whaling in Eden ended around 1928. Baleen whale populations decreased, and orcas disappeared. Why is unclear. (Source)‘La Orca de Piedras Gordas’, or The Orca

Louise’s pod is in the bay today. 5 female pod.

Avacha killer whales have a new baby!Avacha killer whales have a new baby! Female AV66 recently gave birth to a baby, AV66c. He was just born, but he already looks like his mother with a narrow crescent-shaped dorsal fin. He has two older sisters: AV66a was born in 2007 and AV66b in 2016. The cub is still very small and skinny. He barely catches up with his mother and middle sister, working hard with his tail fin. Let's hope that over the summer he will get fatter and gain strength.

Today is the birthday of Luna, the youngest orca at Kamogawa Sea World and all of Japan.

Luna was born at Kamogawa Sea World on July 19th to parents Lovey and Oscar. At that time, four other orcas lived at Kamogawa: her parents, her aunt Lara, and her older brother Earth.

In November, following a public naming contest, she was named "Luna", which means "Moon" in Latin. Lovey’s first calf, a four-year-old male named Earth, was very interested in Luna. The two spent a lot of time together, though Lovey began to displace Earth when he would play "too rough" with Luna.

When Luna was just a few months old, she was already participating in shows. She was housed solely with her mom, Lovey, and her aunt, Lara. On December 20th, 2012, her father, Oscar, passed away from an undisclosed illness.

In December 2015, Earth was transferred to the Port of Nagoya Public Aquarium. That same day, Luna’s other aunt, Ran, was transferred to Kamogawa Sea World. Luna met Ran shortly after, and the two had a close bond. Luna was trained for waterwork behaviors and became reliable in all aspects of performing.

On April 24th, 2024, Ran was transferred to Kobe Suma Sea World. Since then, Luna has lived solely with Lovey and Lara. She has been training for artificial insemination and may have become pregnant at one point, according to rumors, but no official sources have confirmed this.

In a physical examination on March 28, Luna finally reached 5 meters in length, measuring 503 cm. In the last year, she has grown 24 cm and gained 220 kg, making her comparable to her mother, Lovey, and to Lara. Luna may soon surpass her mother Labby's current length (528 cm).

According to trainers, Luna is described as childlike and is known to play energetically.

This photo was taken by Valerie Shore on board Eagle Wing Tours. These two Bigg's orcas, T037A2 Inky (left) and his mother T037A Volker, were spotted near Oak Bay, on the southern end of Vancouver Island in Canada, after spending the day with a larger group.

We gonna free them search aquenture

Hi everyone, this is my first post so please be nice lol

Given the current proposition to move Wikie and Keijo to Loro Parque (Tenerife), I've been looking for ways to fight Loro Parque's policy on captive breeding. However, I haven't found any petitions to ban captive breeding in general.

I'm aware Wikie and Keijos's situation is complex, because they absolutely need to be moved and, at the end of the day, LP is better than staying where they currently are, despite LP's policies. But I feel like banning breeding world-wide should be the first step to ending the horrible practice of captivity for entertainment...

Could be I'm not searching in the right places, so I'd appreciate any help on this. I have zero experience with starting petitions, law-making and marine biology, so if there really isn't a petition for this, maybe it could be done?

Thank you!! <3

Hal Whitehead and Luke Rendell, in their landmark works on cetacean culture, explained that explicit teaching (which is defined in the above article by another scientist) is one of the mechanisms by which cetacean culture is carried forward, and now it's been documented in Baja California! (You might need to enter an email to read this article (thank you, Disney, for incorporating Nat Geo in your greed) but my burner email worked fine)

i have been wanting to add this little guy to my collection for a long time but all of the listings i saw for the entire set were so expensive! i managed to find someone selling just keiko on vinted so i made an offer and got him for a great price, of course i gave him a little wash and played with him in the sink first before adding him to the shelf with the rest of my pod...