Jason M. Colby. Orca

In a Pacific Northwest now known for thousands of whale watchers closely following the individual and social lives of orcas like Oreo, Rainshadow, and Muncher in the J, K, and L pods, it seems all too normal when the Washington State governor proclaims that “I believe we have orcas in our soul in this state” (quoted in the New York Times, July 9, 2018). This fascination extends far beyond the Salish Sea, as events of late summer 2018 revealed. Many around the world were touched by the mourning display of a J-pod mother pushing her dead baby calf over one thousand miles in seventeen days. With such reverence and popularity, it is hard to imagine a time when orcas were not beloved animals of the Pacific Northwest. Yet this was not always the case, as Jason M. Colby shows in his engaging and timely new book Orca: How We Came to Know and Love the Ocean’s Greatest Predator. Once shot at as fish-eating pests or rendered for their fat, the shift to revered animal took place relatively recently and quickly during the 1960s and 1970s. Colby focuses on the changing of attitudes, which he argues was largely due to the captivity and public display of orcas.

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