Southern Resident Killer Whales also known as Southern Resident Orca Whales are found in the Salish Sea in Washington and British Columbia. Presently there are 75 known South Resident Orca Whales facing extinction.
In the 1960’s and 1970’s some 50 were captured and transported to “marine parks” including infant Orca, Lolita, as she was named, ended up in the Miami Seaquarium where she remained for some 50 years until a rescue attempt was initiated by Indigenous tribes considering Orcas as part of their family. One of the Indigenous rescuers made a cutting analogy to the kidnapping of these Orcas to the kidnapping of Indigenous children into Canadian and American “residential school” compounds. North America’s Killing Fields as I refer to them.
The documentary chronicles the struggle of the Indigenous people to repatriate Lolita (Sk’ali Ch’ elh-tenaut) to her native Salish Sea. Alliances are struck and the viewer drawn very deeply into a life and death struggle to save Skali. The watch is so intense I would not be surprised if most of the audience will be joyous one moment then absolutely shattered at the next.
I watched a series on APTN network in Canada called “Yukon Harvest” and I remember one indigenous hunter shooting a deer. There was no joy in his voice and he walked up to his quarry but rather a deep sense of respect for an animal that gave its life to him. This is the Indigenous attitude towards Skali. Respect and the quest to rescue her was deeply symbolic. Land and sea with all its creatures including humans are one intertwined entity.
While you may be saddened or made furious by this documentary you may find the need to attribute blame for the kidnapping and commodification of Orcas. It is, in my opinion, all the happy audience members at these “seaworld” shows unknowingly supporting the kidnapping of Orcas no better than the blind and ignorant tourists riding elephants in Thailand or ”volunteering” at orphanages in Cambodia.
Here just outside of Toronto we have Marineland Niagara as a torture chamber for aquatic animals. Business and treatment of sea animals has not been particularly encouraging for its owners lately.
A very disturbing documentary and if you have difficulty watching the trailer be prepared for what is to come https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8-NOeZ64F0
Directed by Simon Schneider and Sarah Sharkey Pearce.
Screening on 6December2024 at the Whistler Film Festival.
RKS 2024 Film Rating 96/100.
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