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albino—a person or animal without pigment in their skin, hair and eyes
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altruism—selfless concern for others
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anthropocentrism—the belief that humans are the rock stars of all living things
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anthropodenial—a word invented by animal researcher Frans de Waal that means “a blindness to the humanlike characteristics of other animals or the animal- like characteristics of ourselves.”
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anthropology—the study of human societies
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anthropomorphizing—thinking a god, animal or thing has emotions or experiences similar to ours
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apex predator—a predator at the top of a food chain
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baleen—a filter-feeding system inside the mouths of baleen whales
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Bigg’s whales—mammal-eating orcas in the Salish Sea named after Michael Bigg, the Canadian scientist who discovered that there are different types of orcas
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biosonar—sonar that’s biological—part of an animal’s wiring—and not technological (see echolocation)
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botanist—someone who makes a scientific study of plants
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breach—a whale’s leap out of the ocean and into the air
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cetacean—the Latin word for members of the whale family
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collagen—protein that holds a body together, like biological glue
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commercial whaling—catching and killing whales to sell their body parts
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dialect—a set of calls, or songs in the case of birds, that is unique to areas, populations or social groups. Some scientists prefer the term language.
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dorsal—the fin on an orca’s back; dorsal means “back”
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echolocation—the use of sound waves (or sonar) to locate, find or identify something by the way the sound echoes (or bounces) off the target
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empirical data—information acquired by observation or experimentation
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food chain—a series of living things that are linked to each other because each feeds on the next
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geoglyph—an image made of carefully arranged stones
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gyres—large systems of rotating ocean currents; now often used to refer to swirling islands of plastic waste in the ocean
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industrial whaling—catching and killing huge numbers of whales to sell their body parts
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keratin—a strong natural protein that forms hair, nails, hoofs, horns, feathers, etc.
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matriarchal—led by a matriarch, which in orca society is the oldest female and leader of the pod or pods
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melanin—pigment that adds color to skin, hair and eyes
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mirror self-recognition—a test based on the theory that if an animal can recognize itself in the mirror, then it is “self-aware”
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northern residents—resident orcas who range from Alaska to BC
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ocean acidification—when ocean water turns acidic—and poisonous—due to chemicals and climate change
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offshores—orcas in the Pacific Ocean whose primary food is sleeper sharks
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PCBS—synthetic industrial chemicals toxic to orcas and pretty much everything else on the planet
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petroglyph—an image drawn or carved into stone
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pod—a whale community, so named because fishermen used to say whales stayed together “like peas in a pod.”
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rorqual—any of the large baleen whales that have relatively small heads, short, broad plates of baleen, and deep furrows on the skin
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saddle patch—the distinct marking on the back of an orca
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Salish Sea—the waterways in the Pacific Ocean along the coast of southern British Columbia and northern Washington State
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southern residents—the famous fish-eating orcas who live primarily in the Salish Sea
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sonar—a method of detecting, locating and determining the speed or size of objects through the use of reflected sound waves
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spindle neurons—the cells in the brain that process emotions
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sprouter—a teenage male orca whose dorsal fin has suddenly grown or sprouted
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spy-hopping—whales or other marine mammals poking their heads out of the water to check out what’s happening on the surface
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superpod—a large gathering of whales
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taxonomy—rules scientists use for categorizing living things
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vocalizations—the sounds an orca makes
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zooplankton—super-tiny fish like krill that float rather than swim and are the fave food of baleen whales
