When the orcas in Argentina were first named
 

The story of Bernardo and Mel

By the end if 1974, while I was training to be a park ranger in the only elephant seal colony in the world, in Península Valdés, Province of Chubut, in our immense and always mysterious Patagonia, I could not stop surprising and amaing at the sporadic predence of schools of orcas, patrolling near the coast in their search for any unprepared fur seal or elephant seal, wich are part of their diverse diet.
My interest was growing with every observation, until on January 8th 1975 I finally decided to devote my entire life, my time to try to interprete their behaviour. After several months of watching the physical features and patterns of behaviour of two individuals which usually moved together or in a school of seven orcas, I filled in their first individual identification cards. Each indivual can be recognized by the back of the dorsal fins, as they usually present notches or deviations that last for life. On the other hand, the mount or light stain that orcas have on their back, can be compared to our fingerprints. It was then that  I decided it was time to give them a name, so park rangers and investigators could thereafter easily recognize them. On May 4th 1975 they bacame BERNARDO and MELANY, named after the American investigator of dolphins Bernardo Würsig and his wife Melany, who gave me their support from the beginning of my observations, while they were studying the dusky dolphins in the Golfo San José. Würsig would be my scientific advisor from 1978.

When Melany became Mel

Just as it has happened to other investigators, as time passed and Melany grew older, its structure and the form of the dorsal fin led me to the conclusion that Melany was in fact a male and not a female as it was first believed. Take into account that by that time I was the only observer of the behaviour of orcas in Argentina, and thus I had to experiment, using both methods of data register and individual recognition and sex. On April 1th 1981, to save his honor and mine, I cut his name definitely into Mel. Both orcas were the first ones to receive a name in Argentina. In 1990-91 they appeared in the first identification catalogue, together with Des, Ese, Muesca, Sparky and Nadia, called WANTED which was distributed all along our coasts and it was printed en t-shirts and was published.

 melyber3.jpg (15600 bytes)
According to my investigations, they swim near the coast of Península Valdés at least from 1967-68. But it was not until 1988 that a DNA test was done by the investigator Rus Hoelzel, and it showed theat Bernardo and Mel were brothers.
During 1976, Bernardo and Mel were shot near the sea lion colony of Punta Bermeja, due to a wrong decision taken by an official of the Province of Río Negro, Argentina. As a consequence, both males got several gunshots, one of them caused serious damage in the dorsal fin of Mel which is now leant to its right. Locas authorities treated and persecuted Bernardo and Mel as if they were some bandits instead of protecting them to contribute to the ecological balance of the sea lion colony which was to be protected. Due to strong critics and to a change in policy in the natural areas, orcas have been protected in Río Negro. Unfortunately, and by unknown reasons, Bernardo disappeared in 1993. Some of the people who observed him swimming his 400,000 sq Km area,  are hopeful that he is still alive and we are waiting to see his big serrated dorsal fin cutting the water surface. I began writing the natural story of Orcas in Argentina with Bernardo and Mel and they were a marvel to me with their wonderful hunting techniques which made them famous in many documentaries.
The natural story of the living creatures should never be shown though ravish and captivity. Let's go to a beach or a cliff and we can admire their enormous range of action, in agreement with the enviromment en wich they are the maximun expression.
 

The begining of a trade of pain and death

Chapter 1

The attempt of catching of an adult female by Marineland  of the Pacific at the northern coast of Washington (USA) in September 1962, ended up with the animal entangled in the rope line that surrounded the boat, attempting to attack it and the hunters, fearing a sinking of the boat, shooting the animal until its death.

Chapter 2

Up to 1964, only a catching of an orca was registrated in the literature (Cadwell and Brown, 1964). It was an possibly ill Orca catched with a net at the south of California, and she survived for only 18 hours.

Chapter 3

Moby Doll's Story

Saturna Island, British Columbia, Canada, May 20th 1964, an harpoon firing device is installed over a cliff with the further intention of killing an orca, who would serve as a model for an actual scale sized model for the new entrance hall of the Vancouver's Public Aquarium. The new decoration needed a high quality for the sculpture, so someone thought that the easyest way to achieve it was simply to go to the sea and hunt one orca, to become a model for the artist.

During the 57 days of waiting, 8 groups, totalizing 60 orcas, where observed during the days of May 22th, 24th, 26th and 28th, June 25th and July 2nd and 16th.

On July 16th, harpooner Samuel Burich triggered the weapon and the harpoon of 117 cm (3' 10 1/16") of lenght and 5 cm (2") of diameter , with a weight of 6,8 kg (15 pounds) pierced the body by the left and from side to side of a young female orca of 467 cm (15' 3 7/8") and 1,040 kg (2,290 pounds). Later it would discovered that (among other injuries) the harpoon produced a serious break of 5 cm (2 inches) of diameter in the occipital bone (back part of the skull).

The orca seemed to be in a shock by the first moments, due to the hiting of the harpoon, while another two orcas began to help holding her in the surface by the first minutes. The animal recovered himself slowly and started to swim and breath normally again, joining back with the remaining orcas of her group (about 12) which they were awaiting in the surface at some distance.

 
moby1.jpg (7761 bytes) Harpooner Samuel Burich briefly second before the shooting, july 16th, 1964, Saturna Island, British Columbia. Photograph if J.Bauer . Took from: "The Capture and Care of a Killer Whale, Orcinus orca in British Columbia." Autor: Murray A Newman y Patrick L. McGeer. Public. Zoológica, 51:2,59-69, 1966 .
 

A 12 meters (30 feet) fishing boat, which has been waiting in the nearings, retrieved the floaters at the end of the 203 meter (185 yards) line of the harpoon. The wounded orca fought vigorously by only a few moments. Soon she stopped his fight looking for avoiding the boat, unable to prevent herself to be hauled by the line attached to the harpoon towards the beach where the line was tied to an anchor the wounds of the orca were being checked.

The witnesses soon approached with thier boats towards the orca frightening her, who at this point, was showing herself extremely stressed and was making very acute and and intense cries which could be heared at the surface of the water from a distance of 100 meters (300 feet).

The animal was quickly hauled to the waters of a channel and after that it was decided to hauling her towards a pier in the north of Vancouver at a distance of 80 km (50 mi.), where more detailed observations of the animal could take place. The trip took 16 hours.

The orca was kept inside the pier by means of a suspended line hanging on a mobile crane. While she entered in the inner waters of the pier she began to swim in circles counterclockwise and some plans to keep her captive were made.

The rope of the harpoon was removed only a day after the ending of the trip (and the hauling), and as a profilactic assuring for preventing infections of the wounds, 30 millions of units of peniciline were provided to the animal.

She has been kept into a cage of 14 by 23 meters with a depth of 3 to 6 meters (40 by 60 feet and a depth of 10 to 20 feet) with the depth varying due to the changes of the tides, with the cage atteched to a abandoned pier of the canadian navy base of Jericho. The orca didn't liked to take the food provided and she kept herself away from the people at the pier, but without showing any attempt of agression or hostility.

A radio contest has been made in order to put a name to the victim, who was finally called as "Moby Doll" (laterly was discovered that she was really a male and not a female).

The method of asking kids in putting a name to the new victims of captivity was used as an strategy by zzos and aquaria from there and up to the present days as a way of share the complicity and guilt, everytime that a new animal loses its freedom.

From september 9th (54 days after his catching) Moby Doll began to take the fishes gived, first by means of a cord suspended over him and them directly from the hands of their captors, a thing that surprised everyone.

In the last week of august and despite countless dosis of antibiotics, it began to appear illnesses in his skin caused by a fungus, that extended progressively itself all around his body.

The End of an story,... or the beginning of another one.

At October 9th, 86 days after his violent catching, after taking three fishes he neglected to take any other fish. After swiming indiferently by just a few minutes, made an abortive blow while submerging outside the view in orther to die.

This first experience with a captive orca for 86 days, his non agresive relationship with humans and the fact that he took very softly with his mouth the fishes given by hand by his catchers, generated a change of mind of which observed the filming that the journalism show to the world.

Sadly this experience showed their catchers the posibility of maintaining and training orcas in captivity.

Moby Doll became the first orca to be maintained in captivity showing by this means, despite of being previously harpooned, hauled, kidnapped from his familiar group and treated with fisical pain, that he could be very gentle with the human being, who instead lost his own gentleness with nature attempting to killing such an live being with the mere purpose of getting a model for an sculpture.

From then and up to the present days we know about the economical profits that over more than 30 years meant the orcas and another dolphins for aquaria and oceanaria around the world and the dramatic results for the groups of orcas and another wild dolphins from which members are kidnapped.

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