Posts Tagged ‘Orca’
The Penn Cove orca captures
On August 8th, 1970, more than 80 orcas were rounded up and herded into nets in Penn Cove, Washington. Seven of these orcas, likely from the the Southern Resident community, were taken into captivity, including Tokitae. This video is original and shocking footage of this notorious event, known as the Penn Cove orca captures. Five…
Read MoreMore Success! WDC’s negotiations with travel giant TripAdvisor pay off
Online travel giant, TripAdvisor is to stop the promotion of whale and dolphin captivity shows, a move that follows many months of positive dialogue between the company and WDC. The news is the latest success for WDC’s tour operators campaign, which has targeted big travel industry names and challenged them to stop promoting this kind of cruelty.…
Read More5 Year Fight for Critical Habitat for Southern Resident orcas
Orcas off the Olympic Coast of Washington (National Marine Sanctuaries) Expanding critical habitat for Southern Resident orcas was one of the first things I started working on when I joined WDC as the Jessica Rekos Fellow for Orca Conservation more than five years ago. And now, over five years later – it’s here! Last week,…
Read MoreNorwegian orca Morgan gives birth at Loro Parque
Tenerife, Spain – Wild-caught Norwegian orca Morgan, now held at Loro Parque in the Canary Islands, Spain, gave birth on September 22nd to her first calf. The park announced Morgan’s pregnancy in December 2017, just weeks after SeaWorld ended their association with Loro Parque, essentially abandoning the six orcas that had previously been included in…
Read MoreNoise pollution chronically stresses whales and dolphins
Whales and dolphins depend on sound to stay together in their family groups and whales used to be able to go on large hunting expedition to find their food, calling each other when they found it. However, according to a new study underwater noise pollution means they can only hear each other for around 10…
Read More50 shades of grey – watching orcas in Scotland
Every year, people gather on cliff tops in the north of Scotland to watch out for orcas, some of whom come down from their winter herring-hunting grounds in Iceland on the look out for seals in the early Scottish summer. Run by the Sea Watch Foundation and supported by WDC, we call this event Orca…
Read MoreScientists record first case of infanticide in orcas
For the first time, scientists have recorded an incident in which a male orca deliberately drowned an orca calf from another pod, assisted by his own mother. The mother of the calf tried unsuccessfully to defend her offspring. While this behaviour has been recorded in other animals and three species of dolphin, it had never…
Read MoreFlorida Orca Protection Act stalls in Florida legislature
We are disappointed to share the news that the Florida Orca Protection Act did not make it out of subcommittee in the State legislature, and will not move forward on its own in Florida this year. Introduced in the Florida House of Representatives just a few weeks ago, the Florida bill would set into law SeaWorld’s…
Read MoreFlorida Orca Protection Act introduced in Florida State House
The Florida Orca Protection Act, which would provide certain legal protections to orcas held in captivity in the state of Florida, has been officially introduced to the Florida House of Representatives. Modeled after the California Orca Protection Act, signed into law in September of 2016, the Florida bill would reinforce a ban on captive orca…
Read MoreLolita Case Returns to Court
The next step in the legal process to return Lolita (also called Tokitae) to her home waters in Washington State happened on December 6th in Florida. An appeal on the Endangered Species Act (ESA)-based lawsuit against the Miami Seaquarium, which was dismissed in June 2016, seeks to overturn the district court’s ruling on ESA violations.…
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