Orcas Playing with Their Food: Wearing Salmon on Their Head

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Orcas wearing salmon hats. Is it a fashion statement or is

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it a sign of good things to come in the

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future? We're going to be talking about a recent picture that

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was taken of an orca in an area where there were plenty of salmon

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that wore the salmon as a hat. That's

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on this episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. You're not going

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to want to miss this. Let's start the show. Hey,

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everybody, welcome back to another exciting and funny, I think, episode

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of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. I'm your host, Andrew Lewin. This

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is the podcast where you find out what's happening with the ocean, how you can speak up for

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the ocean, and what you can do to live for a better ocean by taking

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Let's talk about salmon hats, folks. Is it a fashion statement

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by Orcas? Is it being brought back like it was in the

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1980s? Or is it just a sign that, hey, you know what? I'm

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going to play with my food a little bit by these orcas. And a sign that we

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need to learn a lot more about these orcas. You're probably knowing

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where I'm going with this, but we're going to talk about it. Animals

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are really interesting things. I feel as though sometimes when we learn

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about animals, we don't see the characters of these animals.

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We don't see that every whale has its own character.

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every shark has its own character and even fish if you

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study them enough and you look at them and you observe them enough you

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will see individual fish displaying different types

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of behaviors and different types of characters it's a very interesting field of

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science but especially with marine mammals where behaviors are

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observed because these marine mammals these whales these

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dolphins orcas minke whales humpback whales they're

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very interesting, they're extremely intelligent, they're emotionally intelligent, and

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we get to see a lot of different behaviors from them as we

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observe them, whether we use drone footage, whether we do it through

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whale watching, whether we do it through underwater camera work, there's

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a lot of different ways now, especially with technology, that we can actually see

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these marine mammals just kind of have these types of, display

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these type of characteristics. Now sometimes it could just be you know, going

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up against a rock and just scratching itself. Sometimes it's the way they interact with

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other members of their pod. Sometimes it's the way they interact

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with people around them and boats and how curious they are. Some

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are more curious, some are a little shyer. You know, you get to see these

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different displays. But when it comes to orcas and it comes

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to feeding, that's where it becomes interesting. They've

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had a lot of known behaviors that we're gonna talk about in just

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a sec, but I wanted to kind of talk a little bit about behaviors

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and characteristics in animals anyway, especially when it comes to

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animals living in around humans. I had the opportunity, the

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wonderful pleasure of being the Toronto Zoo podcast host for

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about two years. And during my time, I was

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allowed to visit the zoo. I got the behind the scenes couture

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and I was able to talk to the zookeepers about

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the animals that they look after each and every day. Amazing people,

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great scientists, definitely care about the

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animals at the Toronto Zoo. And I really got to

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know a lot of the gorilla zookeepers. And

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that was really interesting because of the different types

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of characters that they had, not only as zookeepers, but also

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from the gorillas themselves. Like for instance, unfortunately he just passed,

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but Charles was the troop leader for the gorillas. Silverback

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gorilla, massive animal, really cool

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looking. I got to see him fairly up close, obviously behind

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the screen, but I got to see him fairly up close. Very intimidating looking. This

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is an animal that could tear things apart very,

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very easily. He's that strong, right? These gorillas are so strong. Was

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afraid of frogs, people. He was afraid of frogs.

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In fact, there are a number of instances where the gorilla would

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go out, like the troop would go out, and they would come out from their

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indoor, I guess, indoor habitat, and

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they would go to their outdoor habitat, and Charles would stop the

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rest of the troop from going outside and make them

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go back in because there was something out there that he didn't

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like and so they would allow the gorillas to go inside they

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close everything off and they started looking around to see what

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did Charles not want everybody else to go in and see they

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noticed that there was a little tree frog on one of the trees so

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they removed that tree frog just to see what would happen and

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now lo and behold they went the gorillas went out they looked

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around and Charles like yep we're all good we can go out it was the

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tree frog It was the tree frog. And later on, a couple of years ago,

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actually it was last year, I went to the zoo with

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my daughter Taya. She's very big into wildlife, wants to become a wildlife

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biologist herself. And we went to the zoo and

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it was really interesting because part of the outdoor exhibit, the gorillas were

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out, part of the outdoor exhibit had what looked like to

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be a reinforced part of the fence. And it was just this

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like square area as a reinforced part, but it looked like a part that they didn't,

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that the zookeepers didn't want the gorillas to go near. And what

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was on that little part to make sure that they didn't go near it? There

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was a picture of a frog. I swear to God, there was a picture of a frog and nobody really noticed

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it. And I told Taya the story about the frog and she's the one

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who pointed out, it's like, isn't that a picture of a frog? I'm like, yeah, I bet you they're using it

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because nobody will go near it. None of the gorillas will go near that

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area. because there is a frog. One more

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story about this troop. There was a gorilla named Josephine.

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Josephine was, unfortunately, she has since passed. They all were

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older gorillas. They were in their 40s and 50s. They're the ones

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that passed. But she was notorious for

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wearing people's hats. she would wear different people's hats

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so not take the people take the hats off people she was taking notice of

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what people were wearing and so they give often

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give like things that are enrichment for the

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animals whether it be apple tree branches or whether it

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be food or whether it be something that they can handle she

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was interested in people's hats and so what they would do is they would give

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her different types of hats and she would actually put the hats on and she would

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look at it in the glass so it was like a mirror they gave her a mirror eventually that

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she could look into and she would put a hat on and she would see what

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she looked like because she saw all the people who were looking at her to come to

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visit and she would see the hats and she was curious and she would want to try

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on the hats. This is what I'm talking about when we talk about marine mammals, or

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mammals in general in this case, about having different characters. Very

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interesting characters, very human-like characters when it comes to gorillas, but

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also when you talk about marine mammals, they have different types of

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characters. We know some animals are more aggressive, some animals

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are more passive, some are a little bit more adventurous, while

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some are a little bit more shy, a little introverted. But regardless, they

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all have their own character. They all have their own characteristics that

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we can identify. And so that when scientists and observers

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and conservationists go up to see and observe these animals, they can pick them

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out just based on their behavior and some of their markings as well. And

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I think that's what we're seeing in this case. There

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was a recent, photo that was taken of an orca

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that was in one of the inlets in Puget Sound and the

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animals wearing a Hat that

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was a salmon. It was a wearing a salmon on its head. So they call it the salmon

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hat It was part of J pod that was inland Puget Sound continuously

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for more than a month this fall Feasting on fish. Thanks

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to the chum salmon run. So that was a pretty big one and But so it

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was wearing it as a hat. This was a fad back in

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the 1980s. In 1987, there were several orcas

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from the southern resident orca population in different pods that

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were wearing salmon as a hat. And it kind of

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grew through different pods. And so as some were wearing it,

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then more of the orcas were wearing it, then more of the orcas, then a different pod,

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another orca was wearing it, and that kind of grew. they didn't know if

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this was more of a fashion trend where people are like let's just try it this kind

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of like a funny thing or whether it was just something that they celebrate

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whether it was something that it could have just been that there was a lot of food

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in the case of the recent orca that was photographed there

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was a chum run a salmon chum run and so maybe it was

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just celebrating that there were just so many fish that it could play with

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them. It actually had time. Its belly was full, and it

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actually had time to eat and had time to play with its food. We

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know that orcas do this. They wear mola molas, the

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sunfish, the massive, massive sunfish, as hats. Once

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they eat them, they wear it on their head. It's something

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that orcas do. And we don't know if it's just like a playful thing. They're bored

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or they want to celebrate. We don't know if it's a celebration of their kill.

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We don't know if it's something that says, hey, there's food out

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here to other orcas to say, hey, I'm wearing this because there's food out

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here. We don't exactly know why they do

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it. They think it's just a behavior that happens very much

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like animals are bored and they want to do something new.

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Very much of what's being hypothesized in the Strait

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of Gibraltar where these orcas are attacking or quote

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unquote attacking the sailboats. And so a lot of

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orca researchers are saying, hey, you know what? They're actually probably

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just trying to learn how to hunt, and they're using the sailboats. There's

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not a lot in the open ocean, so they're using the sailboats as

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a way to mimic what a kill would

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be or what a hunt would be like, and so they're trying that as a strategy. And

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so they try different things. they're sometimes they get bored,

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sometimes they're practicing for a hunt, sometimes they're just trying

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to have some fun and trying to do some weird things like wear salmon

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as a hat. That is what really is

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a conclusion. It really comes down to we don't know much about these

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animals. We know that when their population is up or

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their population is down because we can take those observations. We

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know if there's a healthy animal or not a healthy animal. We can do that

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through observations, through drones, through air sightings,

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through boat sightings. There's a lot of different ways to

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be able to tell about that health. Sometimes it's necropsies after

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they pass away. But there's not a lot that we can tell from a behavior standpoint

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in these very unique and interesting styles

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of what they're doing it it's fun it's

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actually you know fun to to see that these animals are

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displaying these little signs that they have some

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attitude you know they have maybe some style that's

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that's a style for them but they're it just goes to show that they

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are very interesting animals and they're animals that we

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need to study more and they are animals that

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have a unique aspect to them and

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and we just don't know why and we just don't know what brings it

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on we just don't know Why they do it. We just don't

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know what they're for. It's just it's a lot It's a lot of

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interesting things these orcas and and marine mammals in general

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And so what I would say in a lot of these things is these behaviors

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these unique behaviors need to be studied more and

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that that you know that comes from funding that comes from people connecting

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with the ocean people going out and whale watching and There are a lot of

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dedicated photographers and conservationists and people who

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are part of orca networks that are studying these animals, that are studying these

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behaviors, not just scientists, but they collaborate with

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a lot of scientists and it's just a really cool thing

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to do. There's the Orca Network, there's a lot of different orca researchers

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at UBC, University of British Columbia, at University of Victoria, University

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of Washington, Monterey Bay Aquarium does

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it as well. There are a lot of researchers that collaborate and discuss the

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southern resident orca population as well as the northern resident and the

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transient population and to see what these

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animals are up to and why they're so different and why they do

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such unique things. It's a fun thing to be able to talk about,

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not always talking about death and decrease in

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populations. And I want to share that with you on today's episode

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because I think it's really important. I think it's important that we

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talk about these things and be able to discover and

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have curiosity. One thing I realized when

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I talk about this on a podcast, on

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a video, whenever I talk to them, I just talk to my neighbors or I talk to

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my family members, I talk to my kids. Curiosity is

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what's really intriguing about science. It's why scientists

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do what they do. It's why conservationists do what they do. We ask questions. Why

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aren't orcas wearing salmons as hats? You know, what

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is the reason for it? How do I figure that out? These are the questions

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that we need to ask ourselves, and this is why I want to share it with you, because I want you

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to open up your curiosity. And as I end this episode, I'm

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going to say, what do you want to know more about in

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the ocean? What questions do you have about the oceans? Put your

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questions in the comments below, as well, what you thought about this

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episode. But I really want to know what you think about the ocean and

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the questions that you have that you want scientists to answer. Maybe

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it's already been answered. Maybe it hasn't. But if you have questions, I want you to put them

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in the comments below. You can put them on Spotify, on

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the comments in YouTube, or you can DM me at

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howtoprotecttheocean on Instagram. That's at howtoprotecttheocean. And

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that's it for today's episode. Until next time, you have been listening

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to the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. I'm your host, Angelo. And have