Since earliest times, killer whales have been seen as bloodthirsty monsters. Pliny the Elder described them as loathsome, pig-eyed assassins.” The Aleut of Alaska called them polossatik, which means the feared one.” The Spanish knew them as assassin whales”. As recently as fifty years ago, these whales were considered savage beasts that would kill anything in sight.
This all changed when a young killer whale was captured off the west coast of North America, becoming the second killer whale in captivity. To the surprise of the researchers studying it, the little whaleidentified as female and dubbed Moby Dollwas docile and even friendly; she was not a monster at all. As Moby struggled to survive in her makeshift pen, she captured the imagination of an enraptured public, which breathlessly followed her gradual decline and eventual death. Moby had single-handedly changed the perception of killer whales from monsters almost to pets and sparked the capture of other killer whales, such as Namu, the whale that appears at the beginning of the film Blackfish.
As people came to understand these magnificent creatures and appreciate them for who they really were, there followed the worldwide crusade to save the whales. Because of Moby Doll, we all stopped fearing killers” and came to love and respect orcas.”
