The Killer Whale Who Changed the World. Mark Leiren-Young
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to the other side of the world, they share the account of “an enraged bull orca” ramming and shattering a twenty-five-foot fishing boat off the coast of South Africa before devouring four fishermen.
The book concludes with a chapter titled “A Living Nightmare” that begins on the ominous note, “This is the true story of five fishermen...”According to this “true story,” five men harpooned what they thought was a shark near Long Island, New York, but discovered they’d caught something far more terrifying. The hunter was so scared he dropped his end of the harpoon. “For the first time he saw the animal’s evil eyes, the large mouth, the telltale curving patch of white behind the eyes. All at once he knew that a dreaded killer whale was within touching distance!” Not surprisingly, the fishermen survived to tell the tale.
U.S. Navy diving manuals warned that if their fearless warriors found themselves confronted by a killer whale, it was time to get out of the water to avoid being attacked by “a ruthless and ferocious beast.” Naval officers stationed in the Antarctic were advised that killers “will attack human beings at every opportunity.”
Killer whales weren’t just considered dangerous but also useless. In an age when whales were judged by how easy it was to render them into oil, or grind them into pet food and fertilizer, killer whales were a problem even if they weren’t killing humans. Whether killer whales are officially considered whales might be interesting to taxonomy buffs, but to fishermen all that mattered was that orcas aren’t built like other whales, which made them unappealing to catch. They have less blubber and almost no oil. They also have teeth instead of versatile and valuable baleen. Whales that eat plankton—baleens— have a sophisticated strainer system made of pliable keratin (like human hair and finger nails). That strainer—the baleen, or “whale-bone”—was used like preindustrial plastic to make corsets, buggy whips, and umbrellas.
The Japanese ate killer whales, but the Japanese ate pretty much anything they could find in the ocean. No one in North America developed a yen for killer whales. So fishermen were not impressed by creatures that devoured the same food we did. But that’s what rifles were for. Fishermen around the world regularly took shots at the pests North Americans nicknamed blackfish, thrashers, and sea devils.
In 1956, the government of Iceland asked a U.S. naval crew stationed at its NATO base to cull the killer whale population in order to save their precious herring. Time, the era’s dominant newsmagazine, reported on the mission to slaughter the “savage sea cannibals,” which were described as “up to 30 ft. long and with teeth like bayonets.”
The unnamed Time correspondent wrote that
this year the largest packs of killer whales in living memory terrorized the seas off Iceland. They destroyed thousands of dollars worth of fishing tackle, forced dozens of Icelanders out of work for lack of gear. Last week the Icelandic government appealed to the U.S., which has thousands of men stationed at a lonely NATO airbase on the subarctic island. Seventy-nine bored G.I.s responded with enthusiasm. Armed with rifles and machine guns, one posse of Americans climbed into four small boats, put to sea and in one morning wiped out a pack of 100 killers. A newsman watched an even bigger skirmish off Grindavik and related: “First, the killers were rounded up into a tight formation with concentrated machine-gun fire, then moved out again, one by one, for the final blast which would kill them. Other whales helped the troops, for as one was wounded, the others would set upon it and tear it to pieces with their jagged teeth. The sea was red with blood. The scene of destruction was terrible. I have never seen anything like it.”
But before the readers could get the mistaken impression that anything untoward had happened in this war against whales, the article concluded on a cheery note: “It was all very tough on the whales,” reported the newsman, “but very good for American-Icelandic relations.”
THE FIRST TIME a savage sea cannibal was captured by humans was in 1961. A group from the world’s first major commercial aquarium— Marineland of the Pacific—caught a killer whale in California.
Marineland was created in 1938, when movie producers set up a tank outside St. Augustine, Florida, to shoot undersea adventure movies. After capturing a bottlenose dolphin to headline their films, the owners were shocked when an estimated twenty thousand visitors arrived to meet the star. People were more excited to see the dolphins offscreen than on, so instead of shooting movies, Marine Studios decided to charge admission and the idea of a commercial “oceanarium” was born. The accidental tourist trap became Marineland of Florida, complete with the Marineland Motel, Sandpiper Snackbar, and Moby Dick Lounge. And they still managed to make a few movies, including Creature from the Black Lagoon.
In 1954, the idea of an aquarium with big stars went Hollywood with the launch of a second location, Marineland of the Pacific, in Los Angeles. After several failed attempts, the L.A. branch captured its first whale in 1957, when the director of collections, Frank Brocato, and his right-hand fisherman and godson, Frank “Boots” Calandrino, collected a pilot whale. They equipped their thirty-seven-foot gill-netter (the Geronimo) with a cowboy contraption consisting of a net, a lasso, and a platform attached to the bow that allowed them to rope their catch.
On February 27, 1957, they tracked a small pilot whale just off Santa Catalina Island, in California. After dodging their snare for nearly six hours—and taking several runs at the boat—the twelve-foot female was caught, positioned on her back on an inflatable raft, and towed to shore. California’s children were invited to name the prize exhibit, and the world’s first captive pilot whale was dubbed Bubbles. Hollywood’s biggest star was born—and so was the model for future marine parks.
The Franks soon captured another pilot to serve as an understudy for the role of Bubbles, thus establishing the tradition (followed by SeaWorld with Shamu) that captive whales are immortal. The first Bubbles choked to death on a rubber ring less than two years after being placed on display.
But pilots were just whales; killer whales were monsters.
No one tried to capture a killer until November 17, 1961, when a lone whale was spotted in California’s Newport Harbor. Based on the size and shape of the dorsal fin, the capture crew from Marineland was certain that the killer was female.
The next morning, determined to land the ultimate catch, the two Franks and their crew arrived at the harbor on the Geronimo. After several hours of chasing the killer, the crew members realized their lasso wouldn’t work and switched to a 1,200-foot-long, 75-foot-deep nylon net. They easily scooped up the whale, but it tore through the mesh almost immediately. After quickly repairing and reinforcing the net, they decided to try again.
An estimated eight thousand people standing on the shore and curious onlookers from roughly fifty nearby boats watched the capture. But not everyone was rooting for the whalers. Americans have always been fans of outlaws on the run, and the audience on the beach cheered whenever the whale dodged its would-be captors and when one of the hunters fell into the water.
After more than eight hours of high-stakes hide-and-seek, the hunters once again netted the whale. This time, their exhausted captive, whom they’d nicknamed Wanda, wasn’t going anywhere. The men maneuvered Wanda onto an inflatable raft, as they’d done with Bubbles 1 and 2, and after reaching the shore, they transferred her into a tank on a flatbed truck and drove to Marineland.
Wanda’s stay at Marineland didn’t last long. According to the official report on the whale, which was referred to as the Newport Specimen:
Upon being placed into the 100 by 50 by 19-foot oval fish tank at approximately 10:00 PM, the whale initially struck her snout a glancing blow on one of the walls. She then commenced to swim slowly around the confines of the tank, her behavior being similar to that of newly-introduced smaller delphinids. The following morning, the whale was observed holding a newly-killed ocean sunfish in her mouth. This fish was not consumed, however, and during the remainder of the day many attempts were made to induce feeding. Marineland divers attached lines to bonita, and “worried” the killer whale with these as she slowly encircled the enclosure. The animal made several attempts to bite the food and it was at this time that the worn condition of her teeth was first observed. At 8:30 AM on 20 November, the whale became violent and after