Recent reports of orcas wearing salmon on top of their heads has longtime observers wondering if the killer whales are resuming a “hat” fad that originated in the 1980s.
Others, however, are dismissing the behavior as a fluke of nature.
On occasion, one of the great cetaceans has been photographed carrying fish around on their noggin. The last photo on Oct. 25, near Point No Point – which is located across Puget Sound from Clinton – generated such a buzz that national news outlets ran stories proclaiming the return of the long ago phenomenon. According to a CNN article, Deborah Giles of conservation group Wild Orca spotted another orca with a salmon on its head about 10 days later, though she didn’t have time to take a picture.
No reports of fashion-forward orcas in salmon “hats” have been made since then. According to the Whidbey-based Orca Network, in the late 1980s the southern resident orcas appeared to be fond of displaying dead salmon on their heads.
As Stephanie Raymond of Orca Network pointed out, if the behavior exhibited by the whale known to local whale enthusiasts as J27, or Blackberry, was a revival of the old trend, there would more documentation beyond a single photo.
“It is Orca Network’s understanding that the photographer who caught J27 Blackberry horsing around with the salmon on his head is not interested in speaking with news media or sharing the photo further, and is not happy with the response his photo has garnered,” Raymond said in a statement.
Monika Wieland Shields, director of Orca Behavior Institute in Friday Harbor, believes the member of J pod who was famously photographed was attempting to stun the fish before catching it.
“In my opinion it’s a stretch to say it was a salmon hat, and an even greater stretch to say the fad is back off a single photo,” she said.
For those still holding out hope for the craze to continue, children’s book author E. B. White put it best when he said, “Hang on to your hat. Hang on to your hope. And wind the clock, for tomorrow is another day.”
(Photo by Howard Garrett/Orca Network) J27, who donned a salmon “hat” in October, is seen swimming near Admiralty Inlet in 2010.
