Tribute to man who devoted his life fighting to save orcas of the Puget Sound

To very end Ken Balcomb was champion of killer whales and environment

[Just 73 southern residents orcas remain. Photo: Wikicommons/NOAA]

There are some days you never forget.

It may be the dramatic shift in the weather, from dark clouds and grey, that leaves you with a sky so bright you have to shade your eyes.

It may be the company you’re in, people both smart and humane, yet defiant in their certainty. 

It could be the encounter you have with nature, a succession of sightings of endangered killer whales, that the people around you can identify as individuals simply by their markings. Oftentimes they don’t even need binoculars. 

For us, the day was March 23 2019, when we traveled to the San Juan Islands, northwest of Seattle to write about the famed southern resident orcas, a genetically distinct group of killer whales. 

They live in the waters off the Puget Sound, specifically the Salish Sea, and their numbers have dwindled to just 73.

The person we’d set off to interview was Howard Garrett, an activist who has spent much of his life studying the orcas, and who with his wife, Susan Berta, heads the Orca Network, one of several volunteer groups that rigorously track the movements of the whales and share tips of sightings. 

Howard and others are also outspoken advocates for the creatures, calling for regulations for tourist boats, demanding less plastic and less pollution be allowed to get into the ocean, and urging officials to boost the numbers of chinook salmon, a species of the fish on which the orcas live. 

[Howard Garrett (l) and Ken Balcomb (r) Photo: Andrew Buncombe]

Howard, 77, seemed to know what he was talking about but he was rather modest. “The person you really need to talk to is my brother, Ken,” he said.

I would later learn that Howard’s half-brother was something of a legend within the orca community in the region, not least for his celebrated legal victory against the US Navy’s use of certain sonar frequencies. He launchd the battle in 2000 when he discovered 20 beached beaked whales in the Bahamas, where the US Navy trained.

So we boarded a ferry and headed northwest to San Juan Island, which gives others in the archipelago their name, and to the Whale Research Center that Ken had established in 1984. There were firm handshakes, a warm welcome, but he was not mixing his words about the gravity of the situation faced by the orcas. 

“The crisis is huge,” he said that day, a baseball cap pulled down over unkempt hair, and with a thick beard. “They are virtually on the brink of extinction by not reproducing.”

Asked if the southern residents had a future, he said the scientist in him had to say no. But that as an activist - and a romantic - he needed to retain a sliver of hope.

I learned recently that Ken had passed away. He died last December, after having been treated for prostate cancer for more than 20 years.

I found out the news after calling Howard to fact-check a story I was working on about a Pacific Northwest orca called Tokitae, or Toki, who been confined to a Miami aquarium for 50 years after being taken from the wild as a child in the early 1970s. Astonishingly, reports said she was set to be rescued. 

Yes, exclaimed Howard. The story was true. After decades of campaigning in vain, there had been a breakthrough. 

Firstly, the Miami Seaquarium, which had been bought by The Dolphin Company, a Mexico-based group that operates 31 parks around the world, wanted to see Toki released.

Secondly, Jim Irsay, a billionaire who owns the Indianapolis Colts American Football team, threw his support behind a plan to fly the orca back to the Puget Sound and release her into a netted area of the ocean, close to where she had been taken.

“I now believe in miracles, because this is a miracle,” Howard had said.

For those who had spend their lives championing the orcas, the imminent release of Toki was a rare sparkle of joy. Far too much of the news is simply bad, whether it be about the death of calves, the loss of prey, or increased shipping in the Puget Sound.  

Raynell Morris, or Squil-le-he-le, a senior member of the Lummi nation which considered the orca a family member, said she believed her ancestors had helped to smooth Toki’s return. “This is the sacred obligation given to me by my ancestors, to bring her home, and in turn the ancestors said they would clear her path,” she said.

Activists who track the family groupings through matrilineal lines said many of Toki’s relatives, and possibly her mother, aged in her 80s and named Ocean Sun, were still alive.

[The orca known variously as Lolita, Tokitae, Toki or Sk'aliCh'elh-tenaut, performing at Miami Seaquarium. Photo: Wikicommons]

It was then that he told me about the death of Ken, who had been our host on the magical afternoon, watching whales from the research centre’s headquarters. It was something that would have made Ken happy, said Howard.

Now there is more sad, sad news. Last week, officials in Miami revealed that Toki had died, apparently as a result of renal failure.

“Toki was an inspiration to all who had the fortune to hear her story and especially to the Lummi nation that considered her family,” the Miami Seaquarium said.

Howard and others have been jolted by what feels like the cruelest of news. Just as it seemed Toki was to be freed to the wild, she died in the small enclosure where she had performed tricks for humans for half-a-century.

The group that was working to bring her back to the Pacific Northwest involved scientists who had helped in the “Free Willy” rescue, when Keiko, a whale who starred in the movie, was flown to Iceland in 1998.

Howard said Ken had a special way with orcas. For decades, the orcas had been chased and trapped by men using nets and explosives. They were naturally cautious.

And yet when Ken went onto the water, they did not fear him. 

“They began to trust him. And he responded to that trust, and felt he already had that kind of connection with them, and they would understand his good intentions,” says Howard. “I think they always did, and got to know him quite well, better than we can possibly understand.”

One thing that seems clear is that Ken would not want people to sit around moping.

Howard said that after his brother started to get more seriously ill from cancer, he became determined to make the most of the time remaining to him.

He appointed two new scientists, Dr Michael Weiss and Dr Darren Croft, to spearhead the scientific work of the research center, made Howard a member of the board, and started planning how the centre and its world-renowned work would continue after he had gone. 

Ken and his fellow scientists had also tried to address what they believed was the true cause of the decline of the orcas, the loss of high-fat chinook salmon, one of five species that exist in the Pacific Northwest.

He put it very simply: “If you don’t have fish, you don’t have the black fish.”

They said the salmon’s decline was linked to the damming of rivers used to produce the region’s hydro-power. 

Having fought and lost for years to try and have those dams removed, Ken and the centre bought a piece of land that contained a stretch of the Elwha River, located on the Olympic Peninsula.

The river is prime territory for all five Pacific species of salmon - chinook, coho, chum, sockeye, and pink salmon. Since 1992, the authorities and activists have worked to remove several dams, in what is currently the biggest removal scheme in the country.

A recent report in the Peninsula Daily News said as many as 97 per cent of salmon had been lost over the century since the two dams on the river were in place. Sam Brenkman, chief fisheries biologist with the Olympic National Park, told a meeting that 4,000 chinook salmon had returned to the river by 2022, and more than 25,000 trout, up from the roughly 3,000 in 2007. A moratorium on fishing remains in place.

It was next to the river, says Howard, that Ken lay to rest, as the end approached. He died surrounded by friends and loved ones.

And right to the end, he did whatever he could for the creatures he fought to help, and who had given him so much. He wrote shopping lists, chivvied officials, called up supporters.

“He was very, very aware,” says Howard. “Even when he was too weak to speak, he was still very conscious of what was going on around.”

[Ken Balcomb points to orca in March 2019. Photo: Andrew Buncombe]