Orcas wearing salmon hats. Is it a fashion statement or is it a sign of good things to come in the future? We're going to be talking about a recent picture that was taken of an orca in an area where there were plenty of salmon that wore the salmon as a hat. That's on this episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. You're not going to want to miss this. Let's start the show. Hey, everybody, welcome back to another exciting and funny, I think, episode
of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. I'm your host, Andrew Lewin. This is the podcast where you find out what's happening with the ocean, how you can speak up for the ocean, and what you can do to live for a better ocean by taking
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marine science and conservation. So speakupforblue.com forward slash newsletter. Let's talk about salmon hats, folks. Is it a fashion statement by Orcas? Is it being brought back like it was in the 1980s? Or is it just a sign that, hey, you know what? I'm going to play with my food a little bit by these orcas. And a sign that we need to learn a lot more about these orcas. You're probably knowing where I'm going with this, but we're going to talk about it. Animals
are really interesting things. I feel as though sometimes when we learn about animals, we don't see the characters of these animals. We don't see that every whale has its own character.
every shark has its own character and even fish if you study them enough and you look at them and you observe them enough you will see individual fish displaying different types of behaviors and different types of characters it's a very interesting field of science but especially with marine mammals where behaviors are observed because these marine mammals these whales these dolphins orcas minke whales humpback whales they're
very interesting, they're extremely intelligent, they're emotionally intelligent, and we get to see a lot of different behaviors from them as we observe them, whether we use drone footage, whether we do it through whale watching, whether we do it through underwater camera work, there's a lot of different ways now, especially with technology, that we can actually see these marine mammals just kind of have these types of, display
these type of characteristics. Now sometimes it could just be you know, going up against a rock and just scratching itself. Sometimes it's the way they interact with other members of their pod. Sometimes it's the way they interact with people around them and boats and how curious they are. Some are more curious, some are a little shyer. You know, you get to see these different displays. But when it comes to orcas and it comes
to feeding, that's where it becomes interesting. They've had a lot of known behaviors that we're gonna talk about in just a sec, but I wanted to kind of talk a little bit about behaviors and characteristics in animals anyway, especially when it comes to animals living in around humans. I had the opportunity, the wonderful pleasure of being the Toronto Zoo podcast host for about two years. And during my time, I was
allowed to visit the zoo. I got the behind the scenes couture and I was able to talk to the zookeepers about the animals that they look after each and every day. Amazing people, great scientists, definitely care about the animals at the Toronto Zoo. And I really got to know a lot of the gorilla zookeepers. And that was really interesting because of the different types of characters that they had, not only as zookeepers, but also
from the gorillas themselves. Like for instance, unfortunately he just passed, but Charles was the troop leader for the gorillas. Silverback gorilla, massive animal, really cool looking. I got to see him fairly up close, obviously behind the screen, but I got to see him fairly up close. Very intimidating looking. This is an animal that could tear things apart very, very easily. He's that strong, right? These gorillas are so strong. Was afraid of frogs, people. He was afraid of frogs.
In fact, there are a number of instances where the gorilla would go out, like the troop would go out, and they would come out from their indoor, I guess, indoor habitat, and they would go to their outdoor habitat, and Charles would stop the rest of the troop from going outside and make them go back in because there was something out there that he didn't like and so they would allow the gorillas to go inside they close everything off and they started looking around to see what
did Charles not want everybody else to go in and see they noticed that there was a little tree frog on one of the trees so they removed that tree frog just to see what would happen and now lo and behold they went the gorillas went out they looked around and Charles like yep we're all good we can go out it was the tree frog It was the tree frog. And later on, a couple of years ago, actually it was last year, I went to the zoo with
my daughter Taya. She's very big into wildlife, wants to become a wildlife biologist herself. And we went to the zoo and it was really interesting because part of the outdoor exhibit, the gorillas were out, part of the outdoor exhibit had what looked like to be a reinforced part of the fence. And it was just this like square area as a reinforced part, but it looked like a part that they didn't, that the zookeepers didn't want the gorillas to go near. And what
was on that little part to make sure that they didn't go near it? There was a picture of a frog. I swear to God, there was a picture of a frog and nobody really noticed it. And I told Taya the story about the frog and she's the one 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 because nobody will go near it. None of the gorillas will go near that area. because there is a frog. One more
story about this troop. There was a gorilla named Josephine. Josephine was, unfortunately, she has since passed. They all were older gorillas. They were in their 40s and 50s. They're the ones that passed. But she was notorious for
wearing people's hats. she would wear different people's hats so not take the people take the hats off people she was taking notice of what people were wearing and so they give often give like things that are enrichment for the animals whether it be apple tree branches or whether it be food or whether it be something that they can handle she was interested in people's hats and so what they would do is they would give
her different types of hats and she would actually put the hats on and she would look at it in the glass so it was like a mirror they gave her a mirror eventually that she could look into and she would put a hat on and she would see what she looked like because she saw all the people who were looking at her to come to visit and she would see the hats and she was curious and she would want to try on the hats. This is what I'm talking about when we talk about marine mammals, or
mammals in general in this case, about having different characters. Very interesting characters, very human-like characters when it comes to gorillas, but also when you talk about marine mammals, they have different types of characters. We know some animals are more aggressive, some animals are more passive, some are a little bit more adventurous, while some are a little bit more shy, a little introverted. But regardless, they
all have their own character. They all have their own characteristics that we can identify. And so that when scientists and observers and conservationists go up to see and observe these animals, they can pick them out just based on their behavior and some of their markings as well. And I think that's what we're seeing in this case. There was a recent, photo that was taken of an orca that was in one of the inlets in Puget Sound and the animals wearing a Hat that
was a salmon. It was a wearing a salmon on its head. So they call it the salmon hat It was part of J pod that was inland Puget Sound continuously for more than a month this fall Feasting on fish. Thanks to the chum salmon run. So that was a pretty big one and But so it was wearing it as a hat. This was a fad back in the 1980s. In 1987, there were several orcas from the southern resident orca population in different pods that were wearing salmon as a hat. And it kind of
grew through different pods. And so as some were wearing it, then more of the orcas were wearing it, then more of the orcas, then a different pod,
another orca was wearing it, and that kind of grew. they didn't know if this was more of a fashion trend where people are like let's just try it this kind of like a funny thing or whether it was just something that they celebrate whether it was something that it could have just been that there was a lot of food in the case of the recent orca that was photographed there was a chum run a salmon chum run and so maybe it was just celebrating that there were just so many fish that it could play with
them. It actually had time. Its belly was full, and it actually had time to eat and had time to play with its food. We know that orcas do this. They wear mola molas, the sunfish, the massive, massive sunfish, as hats. Once they eat them, they wear it on their head. It's something that orcas do. And we don't know if it's just like a playful thing. They're bored or they want to celebrate. We don't know if it's a celebration of their kill.
We don't know if it's something that says, hey, there's food out here to other orcas to say, hey, I'm wearing this because there's food out here. We don't exactly know why they do it. They think it's just a behavior that happens very much like animals are bored and they want to do something new. Very much of what's being hypothesized in the Strait of Gibraltar where these orcas are attacking or quote unquote attacking the sailboats. And so a lot of
orca researchers are saying, hey, you know what? They're actually probably just trying to learn how to hunt, and they're using the sailboats. There's not a lot in the open ocean, so they're using the sailboats as a way to mimic what a kill would be or what a hunt would be like, and so they're trying that as a strategy. And
so they try different things. they're sometimes they get bored, sometimes they're practicing for a hunt, sometimes they're just trying to have some fun and trying to do some weird things like wear salmon as a hat. That is what really is a conclusion. It really comes down to we don't know much about these animals. We know that when their population is up or their population is down because we can take those observations. We
know if there's a healthy animal or not a healthy animal. We can do that through observations, through drones, through air sightings, through boat sightings. There's a lot of different ways to be able to tell about that health. Sometimes it's necropsies after
they pass away. But there's not a lot that we can tell from a behavior standpoint in these very unique and interesting styles of what they're doing it it's fun it's actually you know fun to to see that these animals are displaying these little signs that they have some attitude you know they have maybe some style that's that's a style for them but they're it just goes to show that they are very interesting animals and they're animals that we need to study more and they are animals that
have a unique aspect to them and and we just don't know why and we just don't know what brings it on we just don't know Why they do it. We just don't
know what they're for. It's just it's a lot It's a lot of interesting things these orcas and and marine mammals in general And so what I would say in a lot of these things is these behaviors these unique behaviors need to be studied more and that that you know that comes from funding that comes from people connecting with the ocean people going out and whale watching and There are a lot of dedicated photographers and conservationists and people who
are part of orca networks that are studying these animals, that are studying these behaviors, not just scientists, but they collaborate with a lot of scientists and it's just a really cool thing to do. There's the Orca Network, there's a lot of different orca researchers at UBC, University of British Columbia, at University of Victoria, University of Washington, Monterey Bay Aquarium does
it as well. There are a lot of researchers that collaborate and discuss the southern resident orca population as well as the northern resident and the transient population and to see what these animals are up to and why they're so different and why they do such unique things. It's a fun thing to be able to talk about, not always talking about death and decrease in populations. And I want to share that with you on today's episode
because I think it's really important. I think it's important that we talk about these things and be able to discover and have curiosity. One thing I realized when I talk about this on a podcast, on a video, whenever I talk to them, I just talk to my neighbors or I talk to my family members, I talk to my kids. Curiosity is what's really intriguing about science. It's why scientists do what they do. It's why conservationists do what they do. We ask questions. Why
aren't orcas wearing salmons as hats? You know, what is the reason for it? How do I figure that out? These are the questions that we need to ask ourselves, and this is why I want to share it with you, because I want you to open up your curiosity. And as I end this episode, I'm going to say, what do you want to know more about in the ocean? What questions do you have about the oceans? Put your questions in the comments below, as well, what you thought about this
episode. But I really want to know what you think about the ocean and the questions that you have that you want scientists to answer. Maybe it's already been answered. Maybe it hasn't. But if you have questions, I want you to put them in the comments below. You can put them on Spotify, on the comments in YouTube, or you can DM me at howtoprotecttheocean on Instagram. That's at howtoprotecttheocean. And that's it for today's episode. Until next time, you have been listening
to the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. I'm your host, Angelo. And have