Moby Doll - The Killer Whale who changed the World

This week was the one I was looking forward to the most though I want to give some warning first; some of these stories are extremely sad as well. I had to take a few breaks in my research because I broke down in tears. Orcas have an ugly history of being mistreated ;_; but if you're willing, come on this trip with me to learn some of their history with humans

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Moby Doll is I think the second orca brought into captivity, though that was not going to be the original plan. In 1964, Vancouver Aquarium commissioned an artist named Samuel Burich to catch and kill an orca whale so they could use it as reference to make a life size model for the aquarium.

Samuel went to Saturna Island located in British Columbia's Gulf Islands, and when a pod of orcas appeared he harpoons a young whale. But to his surprise it doesn't die. There were reports of how two other whales from the pod came to the injured orca's aid "pushing it to the surface to breath" The injured whale struggled and made shrill noises that people said they could hear above the surface of the water 300 feet away. Samuel pursued the whale to finish the job and fired on it with a rifle but the orca still didn't die. He lost his nerve, realizing this was not the monster he expected to "fight" so he calls the director for advice on what to do next.

The director of the aquarium, Murray Newman, decided they should save the whale, and flew in by sea play to join Samuel. Still attached to the harpoon, he and Samuel towed the whale back to Vancouver which took 16 hours. The orca was put in a makeshift pen at a place called Burrard Drydocks and the whale becomes an immediate sensation.

Back then killer whales were not well known. People considered them ferocious man-eaters and vermin that were shot on sight. Mistaking them for a female, the whale was named Moby Doll, and scientists and the locals all came to get a close look at this mysterious creature. This became a turning point between humans and orcas. Moby Doll surprised people by how docile and friendly they were. They later found Moby Doll was a boy but Newman and his associates said stating that it was a female would garner more public sympathy.

Moby Doll was eventually moved to another pen as the dock waters proved to be too polluted (and was distracting ship workers who wanted to look at the whale) so he was moved in July to another quickly constructed pen at Jericho Beach. Unfortunately since their capture, Moby Doll refused to eat. They didn't eat for over 50 days until Samuel Burich, who was trying to make amends for what he did, tried to communicate with the whale by offering them fish.

Murray Newman was named Man of the Year by Vancouver Visitors Buerau and was even planning to help in more orca captures for other aquariums. Further studies were conducted on Moby Doll such as recording their calls. Then sadly on October 8th, Moby Doll passed away. The cause was a fungal infection in their lungs as the result of their confinement and the low salinity in the water. They took their last breath, sank, and drowned

Since the capture and confinement of Moby Doll, this changed public opinion of killer whales, and what also started "an orca gold rush" since aquariums wanted to monetize on their popularity, which devastated the orca population. Within ten years their numbers declined by 40% and the backlash was so great the public issued a moratorium in 1976 that remains even today.

Sadly, men like Neman showed no regret for their actions. As he was quoted saying capturing Moby Doll was the best thing they've ever done. Only Samuel Burich, the man commissioned to kill Moby Doll in the beginning, showed regret and shame for removing him from the wild.

The Times of London gave the whale's obituary a two-column heading, the same size given to the outbreak of World War II. "The widespread publicity --some of it the first positive press ever about killer whales--marked the beginning of an important change in the public attitude toward the species."