Celebrate Orca Action Month at WAIF

WAIF honors and affirms the importance and sanctity of all living creatures. Our purview primarily includes dogs and cats, but domesticated pets aren’t our only local animal friends in need of help. In fact, some of the Pacific Northwest’s most iconic marine mammals are facing an existential threat.

This Orca Action Month, WAIF is proud to support the Orca Behavior Institute in raising awareness for critically endangered Southern Resident killer whales.

For the month of June, WAIF will host a work of art by Amanda Colbert, a research and education assistant with the Orca Behavior Institute, at our Coupeville shelter. Her rendering features a life-size killer whale dorsal fin and is one of 75 unique artworks on display throughout the Pacific Northwest and beyond this month.

The number of Southern Residents has shrunk drastically, due in large part to water pollution, noise interference, and population declines among their primary food source, Chinook salmon. Only 75 of these orcas remain, and each one is represented in the Orca Behavior Institute’s community art project.

The artwork now on display at WAIF depicts the dorsal fin of Kiki, an 11-year-old female member of the J-Pod. The white dorsal fin behind Kiki’s in the image represents her mother, Princess Angeline, who died when Kiki was just 4 years old. Orcas live in matriarchal societies and depend greatly on their mothers and grandmothers to teach them where and how to hunt for food. Calves who lose their mothers young often struggle to survive.

Thanks to her resilience and the help of her extended family, however, Kiki is still alive today. Her story reminds us of the Southern Residents who died before their time, as well as the severity of the risks to living orcas. An inscription on the artwork reads, “For those that remain—and those that should still be with us.”

WAIF animal care technician Ashton Mead is an Orca Network volunteer and naturalist-in-training. He said that preserving the orca pods that have long served as a beloved community touchstone for future generations of PNW residents is critical.

“I’d hate to see this population be gone in my lifetime,” he said, “but everybody can help conserve this species.”

WAIF visitors interested in learning more about Southern Residents and the artwork on display at our shelter can ask for Ashton at the front desk.

Click here to learn more about the Orca Behavior Institute, its ongoing awareness campaign, and how you can help protect Southern Resident orcas from extinction.