Seattle’s complicated history with orcas

Ashli Blow

Ashli Blow • Apr 27, 2025

Jan 30, 2019

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          <article>
            <header>
              <hgroup>
                <h1>Seattle’s complicated history with orcas </h1>
                <h2><p>Amid recent news of an orca mother carrying her dead calf and the reaction it garnered from humans around the world, Knute Berger reflects on our local connection with orcas. Namu, the first live, captive orca was displayed on the Seattle waterfront in 1965. Knute Berger charts the rise and</p></h2>
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               <p>By <a href="/author/ashli-blow/">Ashli Blow</a></p> 
              <p><time datetime="2025-02-04T05:00:00-08:00">Jan 30, 2019</time></p>
            </header>
            <p>Amid recent news of an <a href="https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/environment/a-mother-orcas-dead-calf-and-the-grief-felt-around-the-world/?ref=avalancheghost.one">orca mother carrying her dead calf</a> and the reaction it garnered from humans around the world, Knute Berger reflects on our local connection with orcas. Namu, the first live, captive orca was displayed on the Seattle waterfront in 1965. Knute Berger charts the rise and fall of the whale that would come to define our relationship with orcas.</p><figure class="kg-card kg-embed-card"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="100%" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="https://player.pbs.org/partnerplayer/zWHt-UBzY-PsQ9SOkCwhXw==/?start=0&amp;end=0&amp;topbar=false&amp;autoplay=false&amp;endscreen=false" width="100%"></iframe></figure>
          </article>

Amid recent news of an orca mother carrying her dead calf and the reaction it garnered from humans around the world, Knute Berger reflects on our local connection with orcas. Namu, the first live, captive orca was displayed on the Seattle waterfront in 1965. Knute Berger charts the rise and fall of the whale that would come to define our relationship with orcas.

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By Ashli Blow

Ashli Blow is a Seattle-based freelance writer who talks with people — in places from urban watersheds to remote wildernesses — about the environment around them. She’s been working in journal