Killer Whale Free...?

[Rodri]

KILLERS OF EDEN

The incredible true story of the killer whales of Twofold Bay

from the site: http://www.killersofeden.com/

For thousands of years, killer whales have hunted the great baleen whales in every ocean on earth, yet only in one place have they ever co-operated with humans to hunt whales, and then largely only with one family, the Davidsons. "Killers of Eden" is the extraordinary story of the contract between man and one of nature's most powerful and intelligent creatures.

Each year for more than a century on Australia?s far south east coast, autumn moved into winter and the killer whales would return to Eden from the Antarctic and lie in wait. Their prey were the baleen whales journeying to and from their breeding grounds hundreds of kilometers up the coast. Three generations of the Davidson family worked with the killer whales, often invited by the killers and led out to sea to join in the hunts. A few members of the pod of orcas would swim right into the mouth of the kiah river where the Davidsons had their two isolated houses on the opposite side of the bay from the township of Eden. They would then breach or thrash their tails on the water surface untill the whalers emerged and rowed their boats out to meet them. The Davidsons called this behaviour "flop-tailing". No other Eden whalers were ever visited in this manner. On cloudy moonless nights, the Davidson crews would follow the glowing bioluminescent trails of the orcas which would light up the sea.

When the whale was dead, the Davidsons would simply row home after tying an anchor and small buoy to it, leaving first spoils to the killers. Just like orcas elsewhere in the world, the Eden killers only ate the tongue and lips and discarded the rest.
After a few days the whale would float to the surface and the Eden whalers would row out and tow the remains for "trying out" at their tiny whaling station on the banks of the Kiah river in Twofold bay. The whalers called this arrangement "the law of the tongue" and as a result, far less of the whale was wasted than if the Orcas had hunted alone.

The relationship became so close that the whalers would attempt to rescue the killers if they became entangled in ropes and the killers would protect the humans from sharks if the flimsy green whaleboats were smashed. As a result, few fatalities occured amongst the crews, despite regular serious accidents.

The killers could easily differentiate between the Davidson's green row boats and competitors boats of other colours. Captive orcas in aquariums have no trouble recognising individual humans, distinguishing between others wearing identical clothing such as wetsuits. so the Eden killers could likely have recognised individuals amongst the Davidson crews. The Davidson boats? green colour was based on the green of the traditional Scottish Davidson tartan.

The Davidsons never used motor boats to catch whales. Only rowboats. Sometimes motor launches were offered for use as pick-up boats in case of accidents or to tow whales to shore. In the final decade of whaling in the 1920s the Davidsons? neighbour J.R. Logan would occasionally give the row boats a tow out to a chase with his yacht the "White Heather", but no bomb-gun or harpoon was ever fired from a motor boat in twofold bay. The Davidsons avoided using explosive "bomb-guns" to catch whales because the concussive noise greatly distressed the killers and discouraged them from co-operating.
Using modern technology is not traditional, and is not "cultural whaling".

Subsistence hunting

The Davidsons would rarely catch more than 8 whales a year in their subsistence level operation and likely had minimal impact on whale numbers. They mostly only caught what the killer whales were hunting naturally. The orcas did regularly attack southern right whales which became very rare.
By comparison, Tangalooma whaling station in Queensland took over 700 whales each year in the 1950s, devastating humback numbers at a much faster rate than they could possibly reproduce.
Modern day Japanese and Nordic whalers, in defiance of scientific and world opinion and ignoring a worldwide moratorium on commercial whaling, kill more whales in a single year than most Eden whalers took in a whole lifetime.
If you are interested in direct intervention against the poaching of whales, then you may wish to read about and support the Sea Shepherd Organisation.

The Killers Decline

In 1900 the killer pack numbered over 15 individuals untill a vagrant named Harry Silks knifed the killer Jackson to death on Aslings beach. Other sources state the killer Typee was killed. Immediately the killer pack left the bay for the remainder of the season and the following season only six returned. Whilst it has been suggested that the disappearance of the killers was a result of dwindling food supply, large scale hunting of eastern coast humpback populations did not actually occur untill the 1950s, a whole half century after Jackson's killing and the Eden pack spliting in two. The population of humpbacks at the time of Jackson's 1900 killing and splitting of the pod has been estimated by pacific whale foundation scientists as being the same as its pre-european settlement population.
The Davidsons became aware that the killers were being deliberately shot and killed by Norwegian whalers working from Jervis Bay who were oblivious to their non-competetive assistance to the Eden whalers.
Old Tom himself passed away in 1930, 30 years after Jackson yet still 20 years before large scale whaling for humpbacks in Australia.

The skeleton of "Old Tom", the last of the Eden Killers is preserved to this day in the Eden Killer Whale Museum and bears testament to the extraordinary tales told about him. Tom's death in 1930 brought the 100 year period of whaling in Eden to a close.

100+ years of documentation

No mere myth or the recollections of foggy memories, whilst it was occuring, the Eden story was documented in a hundred years worth of Australian newspapers, police records, court transcripts, diaries, postcards, Australian Government Hansard, journals, and books and for an additional 75 years of oral history accounts and tape and video recordings. The events were viewed by hundreds of eyewitnesses, members of government, leaders of industry, priests and ministers, knights of the realm. It was most fortunately also documented in hundreds of photographs by two full time photographers over a 40+ year period and was filmed by a 35 mm Prestwick movie camera in one of the world's first documentaries in 1910. It was first shown publicly in the "Lycic Picture Palace" in Redfern, Sydney in 1912.
Many of the photos were taken by C.E. Wellings or W.T. Hall and have been collected by Rene Davidson, grandson of master whaler George Davidson. Many of these photographs are represented by original glass negatives.
Copies of the 1910 movie film were destroyed by a fire, probably caused by the nitrate film-stock itself, in the Bega bank in 1913 and only a few frames have survived. If anyone has information on any other surviving copies or negatives please contact the website author.

Inter-species Interaction

Some people find it difficult to believe that over a 100+ year period of inter-species contact, encompassing many generations and with the mutual rewards of greater efficiency and food , orcas and humans could develop a co-operative relationship whilst hunting the same prey. Yet those same people have no trouble accepting that with no prior contact with humans, wild orcas placed in aquariums within months will interact with humans, eventually allowing them to ride on their backs or perform huge leaps with humans standing on their snouts. Orcas are intelligent and curious and will even intently study books about whales as has been documented by Dr John Ford of Vancouver aquarium. Doubters may care to view video footage of this behaviour.

Personally I think it's well past time that we stopped keeping these creatures in confinement for whatever purpose. We basically have no right to do so. What happens to those that are already confined and perhaps would suffer if released? I don't know. I just know that it is wrong to keep captive an intelligent species when there is no need to do so.