At 05:29 PM 7/29/02 -0400, you wrote:

Greetings,

I just read about the plight of Lolita on your website. I was curious what would be involved with her rehab, should she gain her release, in terms of preparation to release her to the wild.

I am very familiar with wildlife rehab for land mammals, birds and such and truly wonder about her ability to readjust to the wild after 32 years in captivity. Now I realize that whales are communal, but I wonder if she had enough time to "learn" the survival skills necessary from her pod to sustain her in the wild, considering she was estimated to be about 6 upon capture.

I am very much against the capture of wild animals for any purpose other than rescue from dangers such as fire or the destruction of habitat, but I wonder about the prospects of returning these animals to the wild after so many years away. Frankly, many species would not survive.

Thoughts?
Ron Jaffe

Nice site, by the way :)

Hello,

You ask a very serious question. One aspect of the Lolita campaign is to educate people about orcas, and it's necessary to know about the uniqueness of orcas to understand the answer. A recent paper published a year ago in the Journal of Behavioral and Brain Sciences by Rendell and Whitehead, called "Culture in Whales and Dolphins" says in the abstract: "The complex and stable vocal and behavioral cultures of sympatric groups of killer whales appear to have no parallel outside humans, and represent an independent evolution of cultural faculties." You can find the abstract and a link to the whole paper at https://www.orcanetwork.org/natural-history/field-studies#rendell.

The point here is that orcas are not merely highly social, but they construct cultures in which each individual is a member for life. I have great respect for many species, wolves in particular, and I understand they have intricate cultures. I am also impressed with recent wolf reintroduction successes.

The issue with Lolita is primarily to return her to her native waters, to allow her to move freely and enjoy the home she was born in and spent her first few years in. I strongly believe she retains a vivid memory of those first five or six years. If necessary there could be a feeding station for her, and as a contingency in case she became too habituated to people and boats, there could be a bay pen set up for her.

But our expectation is that she would gradually merge back in with her pod, many of whom were alive when she was captured. She still calls out in the dialect of the L25 subpod, so there would be acoustic recognition from miles away. Most likely there would be a period of reintegration that could last weeks or months, but after she proved herself to her family and rebuilt the trust and familiarity that holds them together as a family, there is no reason she couldn't rejoin them fully and live another 40 or more years with her matrilineal family.

Please take a look at the paper above and if you have more concerns please let me know, and if you'd like to help, please let us know that too.

Regards,
Howard