When we began this effort to bring Corky home, we imagined bringing her to a place
where she would stay temporarily and be fed and looked after and learn
how to catch live fish again. And then ultimately rejoin her family group.
I was working at the Vancouver Aquarium. The aquarium of course was very early on
involved in the captive industry, and I was hired, I guess,
as a scientist to - I don't know - legitimize what was going on.
Then in 1969 I went up to Pender Harbour, where the captures had taken place.
And there were a group of orcas that were surrounded by nets. Corky was
involved in that capture. I saw Corky taken away - in slings and out of the water
and put on the back of trucks. Corky ultimately was flown to Los Angeles and
taken to a place called Marineland of the Pacific. The capture really provoked my
interest in orcas in the wild. I wanted to know more about them. And we landed here
in June 1970 with a small group of people - a kind of a little expedition, I guess.
Nearby there was a cliff we could observe from, and there was enough deep water we
could put a hydrophone in. We built a little treehouse. We put a bunch of
equipment that we used to monitor the hydrophone in. We started watching from the shore.
That's how we found this place. It didn't take too long for us to realize that we
were actually seeing the same individuals. We started to understand
that these whales lived in groups. And then it was the "A5" pod. And the A5 pod
included Corky's mom. If you go back to Pender Harbor, at that capture, a number of the
whales were taken and some were released. Among the whales released was Corky's mom.
So she continued to have babies, and in fact, two of her offspring are here
right now - here, literally, today. We have a really long continuity since
that time in the 1970s of being able to follow Corky's family. She's been in
captivity for most of her life. She's probably 51 years old now. And for 47 of
those years, she's been away from the ocean and in a tank. So what we have been
working with is the idea of a retirement facility. And there's, in fact, a perfect place
just around the corner from us in which there's a bay that has some little
islands at the front of it which could be blocked off and barriers created that
could prevent her from getting out. But it's also directly accessible to
Blackfish Sound, where her family often comes. So she'd have an opportunity there, we
think, to at least communicate acoustically with her family. There are the calls, there's
the dialects, there's a language, if you will, that is still common between them.
And there's Fife and Ripple, right, who are offspring of her mother's?
Exactly. That's right, her brother and sister.
So when they call, she'll hear them.
There's no question that Corky will
recognize the sounds made by the A5 pod. When we were very actively
campaigning for Corky in the '90s, there was a film crew from Prime Time Live. We gave
him the tape recording of Corky's pod, and they took it to SeaWorld and played the
sounds of Corky's family to her, and it was no question about her reaction.
Her whole body started to shake when she heard the sounds of her family. It was a
profound moment. You can see how large this space is.
It has significant water depths,
but it also has very far reaches and shallow depths, and muddy bottom and so forth.
I think it's vital that this move for Corky happens soon.
For one thing, she's the oldest orca in captivity, so we don't know how long
she's going to live.
We don't know how long it's going to be before she takes her last breath and
drops to the bottom of that tank at SeaWorld. It could happen anytime. There's a
real urgency to doing this soon.
Now, really And I think we have a real opportunity in Double Bay. The owners are willing,
even enthusiastic about it being used as a retirement home for Corky. All we need
is SeaWorld's nod. And it could happen. SeaWorld's in such trouble at this point
in terms of numbers, stock market. All of those things that make a business thrive
are obstacles to SeaWorld at this point. And I just think that if they get
actively involved in bringing Corky home and delight people around the world
in what they're doing, their fortunes will rise. If I could sit down with
Joel Manby, I would say to him that he has a fantastic opportunity to do
something right after all these years of doing things that are actually quite bad
for orcas. SeaWorld's got a real chance to do something great, wonderful, for
one of them. I feel optimistic, mostly because public perceptions have changed
so much.
It's literally impossible for the captive industry to continue indefinitely in the
way that it has. These are captive orcas. They have families in the wild that they
come from. They are totally deprived of the most important element of their
perceptual life, which is sound.
They are involved in a shabby business that exists solely to make money. I think
what I'd like to say about Corky is that she's alive. She's still alive. So she
still has a chance. And I just think that SeaWorld should give her that chance
and that she should come home.