n o t e Restoration Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council b o o k Killer Whale

• Main Authors: Orcinus Orca, Photo Craig Matkin, Craig Matkin, Eva Saulitis
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 1997
• Subjects: Sickle; aleut; eyak; haida; Killer Whale; Orca; Orcinus orca; tlingit; Alaska; Killer whale
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.233.2121; http://www.whalesalaska.org/docs/RN_orca.pdf

Killer whales have been a part of human mythology and imagination for thousands of years. As early as 100 B.C., Nazca Natives of Peru built temples dedicated to killer whale gods and used killer whale designs to symbolize power, courage and fertility. The killer whale is a potent spiritual symbol for Tlingit and Haida people, 6,000 miles to the north in British Columbia and southeastern Alaska. In Prince William Sound (PWS), Chugach, Eyak and Aleut Native people have a long relationship with killer whales as spiritual beings and as fellow hunters and co-inhabitants of the sound’s rich coastline. According to Alaskan coastal Natives, before contact with Europeans, animals and humans spoke a common language and moved back and forth between one another’s worlds. In recent times, the language and society of animals is viewed through many different lenses: symbolic, spiritual, and scientific. Because killer whales and other cetaceans spend most of their lives hidden from human view, and because they inhabit a watery world so different than ours, there is still tremendous mystery associated with killer whale behavior and communication. Much scientific knowledge of wild killer whales has come about in similar ways to the traditional knowledge of Native people: through decades of patient observation and questioning. Killer whales, Orcinus orca, are toothed cetaceans and the largest members of the dolphin family, Delphinidae. Adult males average 8.2 m in length and weigh at least 4000 kg; adult females average 7 m in length and weigh at least 3000 kg. 1 The sharply contrasting black and white markings of killer whales and their dorsal fins, which are larger than those of any other cetacean species, make them easily identifiable. Adult males are distinguished from females and immature males by their tall, triangular dorsal fin, which can attain a height of 1.8 m. 1 The sickle-shaped dorsal fin of female killer whales is half the size of that of adult males.