Earth First Journal, June 22, 2023
A month after a news article about boat-sinking orcas went viral, the killer whales have become full-fledged folk heroes. (Should that be “full-finned”? “Totally toothed”?) The stories we tell about the yacht-yeeting cetaceans express our desire to liberate ourselves from oppressive systems.
The #OrcaUprising, as it’s now widely called, has been underway for a while. The boat-sinking orcas were reported on as early as 2020, but the news didn’t go viral until LiveScience shared it in May 2023. Likely the article sparked our collective imagination because of a bit of poetry it contained. “A critical moment of agony,” (such as a boat strike or the loss of a calf) may have caused a matriarch whale named White Gladis to begin sinking ships, the article reported.
A critical moment of agony.
Nothing could be more relatable.
