History of Cetaceans at the Aquarium

From the rise and fall of industrial whaling, to the evolving struggle to conserve species at risk, human beings and cetaceans have had a long and varied relationship. Over the last 50 years, in particular, our understanding of cetaceans has changed remarkably.

The whale was harpooned, but did not die. Learning of this, Murray A. Newman, the Aquarium’s first director, instructed the pair to bring the whale back to Vancouver alive. Great care was taken so that the whale, referred to as Moby Doll would not be further harmed. Indeed, it quite passively followed the boat on the end of a line all the way across the Strait. Here, the whale survived in captivity for three months. This event caught the attention of international media; the whole world watched and attitudes towards killer whales began to change.

Previously killer whales were considered vicious, fearsome killers. Wildlife managers believed that predators like these needed to be culled to maintain harvestable populations of fish. To this end, a Browning fifty-calibre machine gun, that was fortunately never used, was mounted at Seymour Narrows. But Moby Doll (who turned out to be a male), was docile, even friendly. What’s more, he made it clear that killer whales could be housed in a safe manner and were easily trained. The public’s interest was galvanised, and soon aquariums around the world were clamouring for them.

By the following year killer whales were fetching top dollar on the international market. So when a pair of fishermen accidentally caught two killer whales in Warrior Cove, south of Namu, they held on to them expecting to get rich. The younger whale escaped but Ted Griffith of the Seattle Aquarium flew up immediately and bought the second, a mature bull. Remarkably, up to 40 whales remained near the whale’s pen until he was taken away. In particular, a large cow and two calves stayed within several feet of the bull. At this time, no one imagined that whales were capable of developing such strong bonds.

Moby Doll at the Burrard Drydocks.

Hyak being lowered into a pool at the
at the Vancouver Aquarium.

In 1967 a killer whale named Walter, which had been caught off the Washington coast, was brought to Vancouver for the annual Boat Show. The whale was purchased by the Aquarium and, when it was realized that he was a she, renamed Skana. Skana soon became the Aquarium’s star attraction.

The following year a group of whales were caught in Pender Harbour. A small male originally called Peanuts and later named Hyak was purchased and brought to the Aquarium. Hyak would be Skana’s companion until her death in 1980.

In 1967, having just completed his Ph.D. in psychology at UCLA, Dr. Paul Spong came to Vancouver to work with UBC and the Vancouver Aquarium on cetacean cognition. His early research focussed on the Aquarium’s two Pacific white-sided dolphins, Diana and Splasher. He began basic studies in vision and perception here that quickly yielded an understanding of how dolphins see and, perhaps more importantly, how quickly they learn.. The next step seemed obvious, which was to apply a similar series of tests to the Aquarium’s killer whale, Skana.

Dr. Paul Spong testing the visual acuity of
an Aquarium dolphin.

Skana proved to be an incredibly good student. Seventy-two trials per day were performed and she responded remarkably well. Skana would perform a behaviour and Dr. Spong would reward her with a fish. Then one day something unusual happened. She got one wrong. This was unusual but not unheard of. However, she began to consistently do the opposite of what the researchers had come to expect. The question of motivation arose. Perhaps a small fish to a large whale was not sufficient motivation. So in order to introduce something novel to her environment, Dr. Spong and his assistant Don White began to introduce sounds by means of an underwater speaker.

Skana reacted very favourably to the new stimulus. The researchers began experimenting with a variety of different sounds, from simple waveform generators to reproductions of classical music. This last trial produced astonishing results. Skana began to race around the pool and perform leaps out of the water. This led to further studies in killer whale acoustics.

An example of a spectrogram of a killer whale vocalization.
Image by Harald Yurk.

Another project generated out of this ongoing research was the establishment of permanent hydrophone stations along the B.C. coast. Now that the dialects of individual matrilines could be recognized, this technology allowed researchers to remotely monitor the movements of killer whales. Hopefully as this project continues, a network of such hydrophones will allow us to track where the whales go in winter, a question that continues to perplex researchers.

The public’s interest in this project was phenomenal and so it was arranged to broadcast the signal on a low-power FM station known as ORCA FM. While ORCA FM can only be received in the Johnstone Strait area of Vancouver Island, a similar project called Orca Live operates through the summers and broadcasts over the Internet.