before the Vancouver Aquarium’s expedition, a book entitled Killer Whale! presented the most up-to-date information on the creature Burich and Bauer were hired to hunt. The introduction by Dr. Ross F. Nigrelli, pathologist at the New York Aquarium, warns readers that “the fiercest, most terrifying animal in all the world lives in the sea, not on land. Lions, tigers and great bears are considered savage animals, but many times more powerful and far more vicious than any of these is the killer whale.”
Authors Joseph J. Cook and William L. Wisner explain that “from the beginning of time the killer whale has been feared wherever man has depended upon the ocean for food. To the Eskimo, the orca was the wolf of the sea because of its habit of hunting in packs. To the Pacific Northwest Indian, it was the fierce and fearless hunter of the open waters.”
The authors offer a collection of terrifying tales about ornery orcas, describing an attack in the Antarctic where several boats were pursued by “a pack of killer whales.” The writers report that “the men were able to reach the edge of a nearby ice floe, abandon their craft, and flee to safety on foot. There probably have been many instances where men were not so fortunate. No doubt seal hunters, Eskimos and others traveling alone on the ice have been captured by orcas with no witnesses to tell of their fate.”
Moving to the other side of the world, they share the account of “an enraged bull orca” ramming and shattering a twenty-five-foot fishing boat off the coast of South Africa before devouring four fishermen.
The book concludes with a chapter titled “A Living Nightmare” that begins on the ominous note, “This is the true story of five fishermen...”According to this “true story,” five men harpooned what they thought was a shark near Long Island, New York, but discovered they’d caught something far more terrifying. The hunter was so scared he dropped his end of the harpoon. “For the first time he saw the animal’s evil eyes, the large mouth, the telltale curving patch of white behind the eyes. All at once he knew that a dreaded killer whale was within touching distance!” Not surprisingly, the fishermen survived to tell the tale.
U.S. Navy diving manuals warned that if their fearless warriors found themselves confronted by a killer whale, it was time to get out of the water to avoid being attacked by “a ruthless and ferocious beast.” Naval officers stationed in the Antarctic were advised that killers “will attack human beings at every opportunity.”
Killer whales weren’t just considered dangerous but also useless. In an age when whales were judged by how easy it was to render them into oil, or grind them into pet food and fertilizer, killer whales were a problem even if they weren’t killing humans. Whether killer whales are officially considered whales might be interesting to taxonomy buffs, but to fishermen all that mattered was that orcas aren’t built like other whales, which made them unappealing to catch. They have less blubber and almost no oil. They also have teeth instead of versatile and valuable baleen. Whales that eat plankton—baleens— have a sophisticated strainer system made of pliable keratin (like human hair and finger nails). That strainer—the baleen, or “whale-bone”—was used like preindustrial plastic to make corsets, buggy whips, and umbrellas.
The Japanese ate killer whales, but the Japanese ate pretty much anything they could find in the ocean. No one in North America developed a yen for killer whales. So fishermen were not impressed by creatures that devoured the same food we did. But that’s what rifles were for. Fishermen around the world regularly took shots at the pests North Americans nicknamed blackfish, thrashers, and sea devils.
In 1956, the government of Iceland asked a U.S. naval crew stationed at its NATO base to cull the killer whale population in order to save their precious herring. Time, the era’s dominant newsmagazine, reported on the mission to slaughter the “savage sea cannibals,” which were described as “up to 30 ft. long and with teeth like bayonets.”
The unnamed Time correspondent wrote that
this year the largest packs of killer whales in living memory terrorized the seas off Iceland. They destroyed thousands of dollars worth of fishing tackle, forced dozens of Icelanders out of work for lack of gear. Last week the Icelandic government appealed to the U.S., which has thousands of men stationed at a lonely NATO airbase on the subarctic island. Seventy-nine bored G.I.s responded with enthusiasm. Armed with rifles and machine guns, one posse of Americans climbed into four small boats, put to sea and in one morning wiped out a pack of 100 killers. A newsman watched an even bigger skirmish off Grindavik and related: “First, the killers were rounded up into a tight formation with concentrated machine-gun fire, then moved out again, one by one, for the final blast which would kill them. Other whales helped the troops, for as one was wounded, the others would set upon it and tear it to pieces with their jagged teeth. The sea was red with blood. The scene of destruction was terrible. I have never seen anything like it.”
But before the readers could get the mistaken impression that anything untoward had happened in this war against whales, the article concluded on a cheery note: “It was all very tough on the whales,” reported the newsman, “but very good for American-Icelandic relations.”
THE FIRST TIME a savage sea cannibal was captured by humans was in 1961. A group from the world’s first major commercial aquarium— Marineland of the Pacific—caught a killer whale in California.
Marineland was created in 1938, when movie producers set up a tank outside St. Augustine, Florida, to shoot undersea adventure movies. After capturing a bottlenose dolphin to headline their films, the owners were shocked when an estimated twenty thousand visitors arrived to meet the star. People were more excited to see the dolphins offscreen than on, so instead of shooting movies, Marine Studios decided to charge admission and the idea of a commercial “oceanarium” was born. The accidental tourist trap became Marineland of Florida, complete with the Marineland Motel, Sandpiper Snackbar, and Moby Dick Lounge. And they still managed to make a few movies, including Creature from the Black Lagoon.
In 1954, the idea of an aquarium with big stars went Hollywood with the launch of a second location, Marineland of the Pacific, in Los Angeles. After several failed attempts, the L.A. branch captured its first whale in 1957, when the director of collections, Frank Brocato, and his right-hand fisherman and godson, Frank “Boots” Calandrino, collected a pilot whale. They equipped their thirty-seven-foot gill-netter (the Geronimo) with a cowboy contraption consisting of a net, a lasso, and a platform attached to the bow that allowed them to rope their catch.
On February 27, 1957, they tracked a small pilot whale just off Santa Catalina Island, in California. After dodging their snare for nearly six hours—and taking several runs at the boat—the twelve-foot female was caught, positioned on her back on an inflatable raft, and towed to shore. California’s children were invited to name the prize exhibit, and the world’s first captive pilot whale was dubbed Bubbles. Hollywood’s biggest star was born—and so was the model for future marine parks.
The Franks soon captured another pilot to serve as an understudy for the role of Bubbles, thus establishing the tradition (followed by SeaWorld with Shamu) that captive whales are immortal. The first Bubbles choked to death on a rubber ring less than two years after being placed on display.
But pilots were just whales; killer whales were monsters.
No one tried to capture a killer until November 17, 1961, when a lone whale was spotted in California’s Newport Harbor. Based on the size and shape of the dorsal fin, the capture crew from Marineland was certain that the killer was female.
The next morning, determined to land the ultimate catch, the two Franks and their crew arrived at the harbor on the Geronimo. After several hours of chasing the killer, the crew members realized their lasso wouldn’t work and switched to a 1,200-foot-long, 75-foot-deep nylon net. They easily scooped up the whale, but it tore through the mesh almost immediately. After
