They exhibited no signs of having been beached. Instead, they swam around and frolicked amongst themselves. "You can even see some of he bigger orcas swimming alongside the calves as if they're showing them what to do," said an employee of a nearby business.

Although unusual, this behaviour was normal.

False killer whales in the “Hawaiʻi Insular Stock” (animals found within 76 nautical miles of the main Hawaiian Islands) are being killed in Hawaiʻi-based longlines at nearly twice the sustainable rate, contributing to a 9 per cent decline in the population each year since 1989.

Currently, the Hawaii stock is estimated at 270 whales and the Northern Gulf of Mexico stock at 1040 whales.

Until the 1990s, only two kinds of orcas were seen in the inshore waters of British Columbia, says John Ford, a zoologist at the University of British Columbia and a research scientist at the Pacific Biological Station run by Fisheries and Oceans Canada.: “resident whales,” which prefer delicacies such as salmon; and “transient whales,” which prefer to eat mammals such as porpoises and seals.

Interspecies was started in 1978, to grant artists the same access to wilderness and wild animals that is usually reserved for field biologists. Their goal and belief is that science is not the only approach to understanding nature. During the 1980s, Interspecies sponsored over 100 musicians to attempt communication with orcas off western Canada.