Whale museum spotlights local orcas

A woman ducks past a full-scale model of an orca whale at the Whale Museum

October 5, 2000
Web posted at: 1:34 PM EDT (1734 GMT)

FRIDAY HARBOR, Washington (AP) -- Museums generally commemorate the past, delving into history through art, fossils and relics. But the Whale Museum in Friday Harbor focuses on the living -- the pods of resident orca whales that each year visit the coast of San Juan Island in Puget Sound.

Inspired by a local survey of orcas, or killer whales, the Whale Museum opened in 1979 to help the public appreciate and understand their marine visitors who have roamed the inland waters of the Pacific Northwest for thousands of years.

"There's a mystery to whales," says museum curator Albert Shepard. "They're down there under the surface, which creates a natural curiosity because you can't see them, so you wonder what they're doing."

"There's a connection people feel with whales," agrees Robin Jacobson, the museum's education coordinator, who noted the rise in popularity of whales with the release of the movie "Free Willy." "They're such intelligent and magical creatures."

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More than 30,000 museum visitors a year are introduced to the whale community in the Whalesong Art Gallery, where orca whales and the sea are described in photos, paintings and sculptures by area artists.

On the second floor of the museum, the Gallery of Whales teaches visitors about the natural history of marine mammals, in particular the 89 orcas of the J, K and L social units or pods that visit San Juan Island every summer.

"I'm attracted to the whale's intelligence, their incredible size and their general peacefulness," says Sandra McLeod, 57, visiting from Sausalito, Calif.

The Whale Museum in Friday Harbor sets itself apart from other whale museums in the country by focusing on educating visitors about whales in the wild.

Unlike whales in captivity, whales in the wild are more active physically and more prone to social interaction.

Originally thought to be fish, whales are actually warm-blooded, air-breathing mammals who spend 90 to 95 percent of their time below the surface and whose teardrop shape allows easy movement through water.

A young boy looks at the bones of an Orca whale at the Whale Museum in Friday Harbor, Washington

The museum focuses on whale feeding habits, distinguishing between biters such as killer whales which bite and gulp their food; and strainers such as gray whales that are bottom feeders.

Orcas are the regional species studied since 1976 at the nearby Center for Whale Research. The museum keeps track of the 89 resident orcas by tracing their family tree and focuses on their preservation since their population has declined by 15 percent in the last five years.

Each whale is given a name -- such as Grace, Squirty or Moonlight based on its ancestry, personality or markings -- and an identification number.

In the Whale Phone booth, visitors can listen to songs of various species of whales: head whales, bearded seals, beluga whales and walruses -- all recorded beneath the arctic ice.

The relationship of humans to whales and the marine environment is explored in an exhibit entitled "Storm Boy," from the Paul Owen Lewis book that won the American Book Award for Excellence in Literature.

"I liked being able to follow up the trip with a little education about what we saw," said McLean, 45, of Abbotsford, British Columbia, whose daughters immediately took to the story of a native boy who finds himself in an underwater realm of mystery and killer whales.

Copyright 2000 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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The Whale Museum

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