I went looking for orcas off Scottish islands, and found a lesson about our living planet's future

Orcas swimming off the coast of ShetlandOrcas swimming off the coast of Shetland
Orcas swimming off the coast of Shetland | Billy Arthur
In the second article in The Scotsman’s series, Scotland’s Wonderful Wildlife, Dr Helen Scales describes her attempts to see orcas and explains how she realised it’s alright to be both optimistic and pessimistic about the natural world’s future

Recently, I went to Shetland with the plan of getting my mind blown by sea life. At the time, I was writing a book about the future of the ocean and I craved a chance to briefly escape humanity’s environmental onslaughts, and simply gaze at nature’s wonders.

Top of my list were the steep cliffs where thousands of gannets, razorbills and other seabirds gather to rear their chicks. And I daydreamed about seeing a sea creature so big their dorsal fin would stand taller than I am.

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Orcas live worldwide, from tropical to polar seas, in the widest range of any mammals. Also known as killer whales, they’re the ocean’s biggest dolphins that can grow as long as a bus and as heavy as an elephant. They live in pods commonly led by a female whose offspring stay with her throughout her long life of up to a century.

One of five menopausal mammals

Grandmother orcas are the wise elders, passing on knowledge of where and how to hunt, and keeping their sons and grandsons from getting into fights with other males. Females often outlive their fertility, making orcas one of only five mammal species, including humans, to experience menopause.

They show up in various spots around Scotland and most reliably in Shetland, where large populations of harbour seals and grey seals offer them good hunting. There are two semi-residential pods, each orca recognisable from their black and white patches.

They’re often joined by Icelandic orcas that come to hunt Shetland’s seals. All in all, there can be dozens of orcas roaming the archipelago. When any come within sight of land, there are usually people watching from the clifftops and sharing sightings on social media of dorsal fins reaching above the waves.

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Throughout my Shetland visit, even with the help of other orca spotters, I was always in the wrong place to see them. When I was in the south, the orcas were way up in the north. When I was east, they were west.

An orca flips a seal out of the water during a hunt off ShetlandAn orca flips a seal out of the water during a hunt off Shetland
An orca flips a seal out of the water during a hunt off Shetland | Billy Arthur

Orcas thrill the crowd

Then, the day before I left, a pod called the 27s, led by a matriarch known as Vaila, put on a dramatic hunting display at one of Shetland’s most popular beaches, St Ninian’s Isle. Three adult orca and several juveniles arrived, swimming together in tight circles and chasing seals.

The older orcas showed the young ones how it’s done, then gently passed them pieces of meat. But I wasn’t there to see any of this. While the orcas were thrilling a crowd of onlookers, I was three islands and two ferry rides away.

Shetland’s orcas are no doubt becoming an increasingly big draw for wildlife tourists and residents alike. It’s clear we all need to be mindful of not disturbing them and their prey in our eagerness to see them. I spoke with a local underwater photographer who shared their hopes of one day having an orca encounter beneath the waterline, and also their cautious respect for these intelligent predators.

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As far as I know, nobody has been badly injured by a wild orca, even the Gibraltar pod that in recent years has taken to running into sailboats and sinking them. This happened once off Shetland and experts still don’t know for sure what any of these orcas are up to. Maybe they’re just playing.

Sacred messengers, shape-shifters

Human and orca lives have long been entwined. More than 2,000 years ago, on a desert hillside in southern Peru, artists from the Paracas culture created a giant stone drawing of a mythical orca. Perhaps orcas were sacred messengers to the gods, calling on them to make rain or control the seas.

Further north, along the Pacific Northwest coast of Canada and North America, indigenous peoples place orcas at the centre of many stories and legends and depict them in artworks and religious ceremonies, on totems and family crests. Orcas feature in oral traditions as shape-shifters, crossing the boundaries between human and non-human entities, between life and death, ocean and land. They can be benevolent beasts, saving fishers in danger, but also unleash their fury on those who disrespect them.

People have also joined forces with orcas. In the 18th century, German explorer Georg Wilhelm Steller reported seeing indigenous people in Kamchatka cooperatively hunting with orcas. In southeast Australia, indigenous people from the Yuin nation developed a unique bond with orcas. Whales migrating to their summertime feeding grounds in Antarctica were often ambushed by orcas and herded into Twofold Bay where the human hunters were waiting. Stories tell of indigenous people calling orcas with chants and giving them gifts of whale tongues.

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A balance of hope and fear

Today, humanity is mostly just causing trouble for orcas, overfishing their prey and polluting their seas with noise and toxins. Even so, they are great survivors and it’s certainly not time to give up on them.

Back in Shetland, I didn’t see orcas but I witnessed their wild home and the spectacular species they share it with. I went there looking for hope and I found it, as I dived through the kelp forests and searched for natural treasures on the bone-white beaches. But I also saw many threats facing our wildlife. Without planning to, I arrived in Shetland as bird flu was ripping through seabird colonies.

Oddly, though, I didn’t leave feeling helpless, but with a steely and reassuring balance of hopes and fears for the future of our living planet. I realised it’s alright to be both optimistic and pessimistic.

I’m still outraged at what’s happened so far and scared about what could come. But I’m hopeful knowing that sea life can restore and recover, and that ever more people care about and feel awe and wonder in the ocean, including when they glimpse an orca’s tall fin sliding by.

Dr Helen Scales' latest book is the Baillie Gifford Prize longlisted What the Wild Sea Can Be (Grove Press UK)

Photographs courtesy of Shetland photographer Billy Arthur

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