Hazelwood Elementary students celebrate Orca Recovery Day

Hazelwood Elementary fifth graders Landon (left) and Derek stabilize an inflatable orca during preparations for a school parade Thursday.

Protecting orcas was the classroom lesson for fifth graders at Hazelwood Elementary School in Lynnwood Thursday. Students in Barbara Bromley’s class learned about the biology, ecology, social structure, endangered status and conservation measures for Southern Resident Killer Whales. 

In honor of Orca Recovery Day Oct. 14, announced by Gov. Jay Inslee, the students also learned about the federal recovery plan for the native orcas and were asked to take a pledge promising to do their part to help our aquatic friends.

Students examine a harbor seal skull with its sharp, carnivorous teeth. Tracie Merrill of the Whale Museum warned students of how infectious a seal bite can be.

The day started with an information session with the Whale Museum’s Tracie Merrill. She brought samples of baleen, skulls and teeth of marine mammals, such as a sea lion’s shoulder blade about the size of a serving platter, a harbor seal skull and a harbor porpoise skull, which is very close in structure to the orca.

(According to the Ocean Conservancy, orcas have many characteristics in common with whales, but taxonomically, they’re actually dolphins. Learn more here.)

Hazelwood students listen to the whale calls from our resident orca pod and the loud boats that hinder their echolocation and communication.
Tracie Merrill explains how orcas in noisy waters will go silent.

Merrill played for the students underwater sounds of orca calls recorded in Puget Sound. As she explained how orcas hunt by echolocation,  the audio switched to whale calls being drowned out by boat motors.

“What do you do when someone can’t hear you?” Merrill asked the students.

The students replied that they yell, and Merrill explained that was what the orcas were doing to hear each other over the boats. Then, like humans tired of yelling and not being heard, the orca and other whales save their breath and stay quiet. Their silence results in issues finding each other and food, she added.

Another critical lesson Merrill gave the children was how pollutants accumulate in marine animals and how they are passed up the food chain to predators. Animals that are lower on the food chain take in chemical pollutants and plastics, which stay in their body and are then passed to the animal that eats them, and so on.

Trash found on a dive included Coke bottles, iPhones, baby pacifiers and coffee percolator parts.
This cellphone has barnacles growing from the inside out. If you look at the edge of the screen, you can see where they broke through.

The amount of pollution ingested increases with the animal’s size due to the more significant amount of food required to sustain them. This issue is also compounded by the fact that the salmon on which the orca depend are smaller than they were in the past, requiring the orca to eat more of them.

Chemicals and plastics are not the only pollution found in the ocean. The children also displayed garbage found in the sea by scuba divers. Among the items were a cell phone, coffee percolator parts, sunglasses and an audio tape.

Students eagerly hold up their hands for an instrument to play during the parade.
With instruments sounding out the cadence, Ms. Bromley’s class performs a practice run of the Orca Parade for the younger children.

Students created a parade and an information session for their younger schoolmates with musical instruments. They inflated balloons of an orca and her baby, provided by Better Ground, a Puget Sound conservation group.

Bill Moyer, executive director of the Backbone Campaign, gave the students a quick percussion lesson and handled the adult orca’s body while fifth graders Landon and Derek controlled the flippers. Fellow student Makai handled the baby orca for the parade and wore an orca costume during the procession.

The baby orca kisses its mom, which sends the kids into laughter.
Makai becomes J-19, his whale pod name.

Makai agreed to take the pledge to help whales. He pointed out that only 25% of orca calves survive in the wild, and their numbers are dwindling.

“We shouldn’t take them for granted,” Makai said. “We can do more.”

Learn more about Orca Recovery Day here.

— Story and photos by Rick Sinnett

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