Moby Doll (–9 October 1964) was an orca captured off the coast of British Columbia, Canada in 1964 which survived in captivity for about three months, which allowed for some of the first close study of the species. Moby Doll was the first orca to survive in captivity for more than two days, and the second to be displayed in a public aquarium exhibit. From a recording of Moby Doll's calls, he was years later identified as a member of J Pod of the southern resident orcas. He died due in part to exhaustion and parasite infestation, attributed to his low appetite and the stress of captivity.Newman and McGeer, p. 64
At the time of his capture, orcas were widely feared and hated, and about 25% of captured, immature orcas carried evidence of having been wounded by shootings.. In 1972, Washington State Game Department supervisor Garry Garrison declared that orcas "had until recently been the subject of fear and violence. 'They were harassed, shot at, and killed at every opportunity.Colby, p. 206 Don White, once an orca researcher at the Vancouver Aquarium and later a critic of orca captivity, wrote in 1975, "Before the capture of Moby Doll, of Namu and of Skana killer whales as a species were regarded by fishermen as vermin. Happily, this is no longer the case."
Moby Doll was kept alive in captivity by the Vancouver Aquarium after being harpooned and not dying as had been planned, leading to an unexpected public interest in the species. Moby Doll's captivity sparked the orca capture era in British Columbia and Washington State.
History Capture The 15 foot (4.6m) long male orca was captured in 1964 near East Point, Saturna Island in British Columbia. His size indicated he was most likely about 5 years old, a juvenile who still relied on other orcas to learn hunting techniques, migration patterns and communication.Colby, p. 66 Sculptor Samuel Burich had been commissioned by the Vancouver Public Aquarium to kill an orca for purposes of using as a model for an art display.Newman and McGeer, p. 59 Aquarium staff were convinced it would be impossible to handle a live orca safely after the difficulties experienced by Marineland of the Pacific with their capture of Wanda, and subsequent capture attempts.Colby, p. 54
The collectors mounted a harpoon gun at East Point, Saturna Island on May 20, 1964, as data compiled at the Light House from 1958 to 1963 showed killer whales were particularly common there from May to October (peaking in August with large groups). After several failed attempts, a small orca was seen swimming about 20 meters from the rocks.Newman and McGeer, pp. 59-60 The large harpoon struck the orca just behind the head, narrowly missing the cervical cord and the brain.Newman and McGeer, p. 67 The whale appeared stunned but unexpectedly did not die. To the surprise of Burich and his assistant Josef Bauer, other orcas, rather than fleeing, were raising their injured pod-mate to the surface to breathe.Colby, p. 52
After the pod moved away, the orca tried for hours to expel the harpoon and pull away from the heavy line. Bauer had been moved by the actions of the other orcas and the juvenile orca's cries, and rowed out in a skiff to shield the animal from attempts to shoot him with rifles.Colby, p. 53 No wounds from bullets were later found in Moby Doll.
The Vancouver Aquarium's founder director, Murray Newman, decided to keep the wounded orca alive and bring him to Vancouver, although the local SPCA and others protested passionately. With care, the captors managed to have the young orca trail their small fishing boat like a dog on a leash; he intelligently avoided pain by not dragging on the harpoon rope. Other orcas seemed to be following their movements.Colby, p. 58 Because the aquarium did not have a suitable pool, he was given improvised accommodation at Burrard Dry Dock. When he arrived, the aquarium's assistant curator Vince Penfold and neuroscientist Pat McGeer removed the harpoon and administered medical aid.
To vacate the dock and allow it to return to its regular work, a makeshift sea pen for the orca was constructed on military property at Jericho Beach, a location with less vessel traffic.Colby, p. 61 The pen was "cut into a decrepit and abandoned jetty."
The seven-mile transfer of Moby Doll's berth on July 24 took ten hours, longer than expected, due in part to his resistance and attempts to escape.Colby, p. 62 "The captured killer whale bucked, twisted, squealed angrily, thrashed the water and charged the boat that tried to nudge her into her new home," reported the Vancouver Sun. Sam Burich and Vince Penfold were in the boat.
Display On Saturday, July 18, Burrard Dry Dock had been opened for the general public to watch the orca. About 10,000 visitors queued in the rain to see him. Subsequently, the public was kept away, however. Because scientists had never previously been able to study a live orca, aquarium curator Murray Newman was eager to keep Moby Doll for that purpose, more than for display and studies were conducted when visitors were not present. The animal's poor health and well-being led the aquarium to put off any further public viewing of the captive. When Moby Doll was moved to the army base at Jericho Beach, "guards were posted 24 hours a day to protect the whale from the public."Newman and McGeer, p. 62 However, to Newman's dismay, sightseers followed the orca to Jericho Beach. Moby Doll did not interact with humans to the extent that later captive orcas did. When visitors came, he would withdraw to the opposite end of the sea pen.
Following Moby Doll's move to Jericho, Sam Burich was appointed the animal's full-time guardian. He played music in an attempt to alleviate Moby Doll's loneliness. On some occasions, the orca seemed to duet with him as Burich played a police whistle.
The pen measured about 14 by 23 m. with a water depth from 3 to 7.5 m. varying with the tide.Newman and McGeer, p. 60 "The whale's habitual circuit of its pen was counterclockwise at speeds of 2 to 4 knots, the loop usually taking 35 seconds. It often blew (respired) once a circuit, but sometimes made two or three circuits on one breath. The routine seemed to be interrupted only at times of calling." "The large size of the animal retarded maneuverability within the pen."Newman and McGeer, p. 61
Scientific importance
Moby Doll allowed scientists to study an orca up-close for the first time, particularly their important method of making sounds for communication. Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution scientists William E. Schevill and William A. Watkins, pioneers in researching whale sounds, traveled to Vancouver to study Moby Doll for two days. Moby Doll gave them proof that orcas used animal echolocation, and also showed that they did not need echolocation when memory or daylight were sufficient for navigation and orientation. He also gave them evidence that orca echolocation was directionally focused by the melon structure in their heads, which had previously been hypothesized.Schevill and Watkins, pp. 73-74
Their study of Moby Doll's calls was also a scientific first. These were not the "whistle-like squeals" that could be produced simultaneously with echolocation by the other delphinids that had been studied. The orca's calls were pulses of clicks at a very fast repetition-rate, with strong harmonics.Schevill and Watkins, p. 73 (In later research, however, John Ford did detect some whistling to be a minor component of southern resident orca vocalizations, "whereas whistles are the primary social vocalization among the majority of Delphinidae species.")
A separate recording made by UBC scientist H.D. Fisher would, in 1978, have great significance for major orca researcher John Ford. It was the memory of this recording that enabled Ford to identify that Moby Doll had been a member of J Pod of the southern resident orcas. Ford could hear that J Pod had a distinctive animal culture, passing their unique pod-specific dialect from generation to generation. He recently said, "It was a wonderful moment out there in the boat when I recognized the sounds coming from J Pod to be Moby Doll's signature sounds," which were still identifiable decades later among the J Pod orcas.Leiren-Young, pp. 114-115
The juvenile orca's brain weighed 6450 grams, kept by neurologist Pat McGeer, made a massive impression on scientists. It had a very large cortex and huge auditory nerve that gave evidence of the primary importance of sound to orcas. The high density of convolutions suggested exceptional intelligence.Colby, pp. 124-125
Murray Newman and McGeer rightly came to suspect that orcas do not stop swimming to sleep, because the guards that were posted to Moby Doll's pen never observed it.
Sex confusion Assistant curator Vince Penfold said at the time, "there is so much similarity in the appearance of mature females and immature males it will be impossible to tell until a closer look can be taken at the animal." The waters of the Fraser River which flowed through Moby Doll's pen did not allow for the clearest views of his underside,Colby, p. 109 and males develop their much larger dorsal fin when in their mid-teens. When assistant curator Penfold went diving in Moby Doll's pen, he did so from a wire cage to protect himself, which also hindered up-close examination.
"The whale was originally thought to be male, so was first nicknamed Hound Dog for the docile way it swam" to Vancouver at the end of the harpoon line. However, aquarium curator Murray Newman was under public pressure, however, to choose a feminine name for the whale supposedly to match his docile behaviour. On July 22, the Vancouver Sun reported that Newman had selected Moby Doll, in spite of the uncertainty of the animal's sex. On July 27, Penfold announced that he had had a close enough look to conclude that Moby was female. The lower-ranked Joe Bauer and a four-year-old visitor had reported seeing Moby Doll's penis, but neither person's observation was taken seriously.Francis and Hewlett, pp. 55 - 59 Mody Doll's male sex was confirmed only after death. When Sam Burich the sculptor-capturer eventually completed his model of the whale the following year, he made a special casting of the penis as a gift for his onetime assistant Bauer, who had shielded the orca from the bullets.
Feeding difficulty Moby Doll did not eat for nearly two months after being captured. Initially, aquarium staff believed the orca would eat salmon and herring but this was not successful. The fish that were offered were much smaller than the southern resident orca's normal prey. When one-pound fish were lowered into the water, the juvenile orca ignored them and inadvertently knocked them off the lines with his tail as he continued swimming around the pen, probably oblivious to the fact that they were intended as food. As the staff became increasingly concerned, other foods were sometimes tried in efforts to stimulate the orca's appetite. Some of those, for example, whale meat, could have been suitable if Moby Doll had been a different type of orca, such as a local Bigg's (transient) orca, but at the time there was no knowledge that orca sub-types had specialized diets. President of the Aquarium Society Ald. Aeneas Bell-Irving called Moby Doll's pen a sick bay and speculated that it might take several months to have him "eating out of hand" and being friendly. At times staff supposed that Moby Doll had eaten a few small fish, but no one actually saw him eating.
In early September, assistant curator Vince Penfold reported that the moody and docile orca of the first weeks after his capture had become friskier, at times tail slapping and even breaching, although the public was still not permitted to visit the whale until a permanent pen might be built. The feeding breakthrough came on September 9. The Vancouver Sun's headline was simply, "Moby Doll Eats." "It was the first time anyone had seen Moby eat," the report continued.