Voices for Orcas is a collection of stories from all walks of life who care about saving Southern Resident orcas from extinction.
“[Orca] need food to maintain both their survival and their cultural traditions that they have had for thousands of years. The whales are doing their part, so we need to do our part and make sure that they have food, a healthy ecosystem, and a home to live in.”
“Orca are a part of our community, so as an individual it is important to reflect on how committed to community you are and how much love is actually aligned with your commitments and your actions.”
“Orcas are this wonderful being that are massive and have these beautiful social communities that we’re learning about, because most of us don’t encounter them often, it can be easy to forget how connected the orca are in how we live our daily lives. These beings are really an indicator for the overall health of the greater Salish Sea ecosystem and how well the surrounding habitats and species within them are doing. If our orca are struggling, we need to listen to that, pay attention, and take action."
“Southern resident [orca] are unique, they are a culture unto themselves, they have developed their culture over millennia, based on the abundance of Chinook salmon, without those salmon they will blink out… It's like an indigenous culture is being allowed to go extinct and we cannot allow that.”
“I’ve loved whales since I was a kid. I could barely keep myself from jumping in the water the first time I saw whales in the wild! I care about the Southern Resident orcas, as I do all of Nature, but I have a stronger connection to them because they were the focus of my doctoral research on environmental grief.”
“We must have policies that minimize our impact on Puget Sound’s water quality. We must also protect the orcas by working to maximize salmon populations through sustainable fishing policies.”
“[Orca] are sentient beings, they have emotions, a heart, and their own consciousness. Just as we try to protect humans, we want to protect these non-human species as well. I think they're important, one, solely based off the fact that they are living breathing beings.Two, you can add the ecological role that they play in being a keystone species and connecting all of these other animals to each other.”
“I think the orcas are amazing in their own right—their culture is amazing, the way they communicate, their family bonds, their social structure, how skilled they are at hunting out salmon from different rivers at different times of the year. The more I learn about them the more incredible I think they are.”
Voices for Orcas 