For The Wild - KURT RUSSO on the People Under the Sea⌠ENCORE⌡ ⧸162

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00:00:31.980 Hey, For the Wild community, it's Ayanna here.

00:00:35.300 Today we are rebroadcasting our episode with Kurt Russo on the people under the sea, originally aired in October of 2018.

00:00:43.820 This episode continues to be timely, as another southern resident orca was lost in January of 2020,

00:00:50.900 bringing the population of southern residents down to 72. Comparatively, the population's

00:00:58.100 historic low was in 1976 amidst the capture era, which Kurt discusses, when there was a total of

00:01:05.900 71 southern resident orcas. We are also currently in the midst of a 45-day comment period from

00:01:13.820 February 28th to April 13th for a draft environmental impact statement on the operation

00:01:19.800 of 14 dams in the federal Columbia River hydropower system. This is critical because the EIS has to

00:01:27.640 assess dam removal on the lower snake, and currently, the draft's preferred alternative

00:01:33.100 is to keep all of the dams in place. Breaching these dams is a key step in restoring wild salmon

00:01:39.840 runs and protecting the remaining southern resident orcas. So please, after you listen to

00:01:46.200 the episode, take some time to submit your public comment before April 13th. Our conversation with

00:01:52.840 Kurt also covers the Lummi Nation's effort to bring Scali Chuktanut, an orca who is currently

00:01:58.420 held captive at Miami Seaquarium, back to her natal waters in the Salish Sea. Back in 2018,

00:02:06.280 Scali Chuktanut was known as Tokatai, so note that you will be hearing that name used in our

00:02:11.600 conversation. Lastly, I want to mention that this March 21st, 2020 is the first annual Netsimat Day,

00:02:20.620 an Indigenous-led event for the Sailor Sea held at the Washington State Capitol in Olympia.

00:02:26.580 For more information, or if you'd like to attend, you can visit sacredsea.org slash events. You can

00:02:34.700 also visit sacredsea.org to learn more about the Lummi Nation's effort to protect and revitalize

00:02:41.020 The Sailor Sea. Now on to the show.

00:02:59.320 So our prayers go to J-50 and her mother, her family,

00:03:06.680 the Sailor Sea, and all our relations.

00:03:11.020 and to your listeners that they keep their hope up

00:03:13.700 even if their pessimism grows

00:03:15.760 stay hopeful

00:03:17.340 because as one person once told me

00:03:19.160 you're an activist

00:03:22.280 you are not allowed to lose hope

00:03:35.360 The silence is broken

00:03:37.620 by somebody crying

00:03:39.420 trying to be heard never a word always the attitude sort out your own always alone

00:03:48.220 wishing for something the world is denying out in the wilderness somebody's crying

00:03:57.260 Hello and welcome to For the Wild podcast. I'm Ayanna Young.

00:04:10.240 Today we are speaking with Kurt Russo. Kurt has worked on environmental issues,

00:04:16.080 land preservation, and treaty rights with the Lummi Nation for 40 years. He is a senior

00:04:21.900 strategist for the Lummi Nation Sovereignty and Treaty Protection Office, coordinating the Lummi

00:04:27.900 Nation's Salish Sea Campaign and the Tokatai Repatriation Project. He is also the executive

00:04:34.500 director of the Foundation for Indigenous Medicine and former director of the Native

00:04:40.180 American Land Conservancy. He holds a BS and MS in forestry and a PhD in history.

00:04:46.700 Well, thank you so much, Kurt, for joining us today. And before I begin, I would just like to extend the deepest of gratitude from all of us at Fur the Wild for the passionate and moving work you are doing on behalf of the Southern resident orcas and in working to bring Tokatai back home to her natal waters and relatives who await her.

00:05:10.980 Thank you.

00:05:11.200 And it feels only right that we begin our More Than Human theme month in honor of the mother orca, Taliqua, who carried her dead calf on a tour of grief for more than a thousand miles over a 17-day period.

00:05:26.720 And it's a profound reminder that we share our place and experience with other beings that bear memory, whose capacity for love and loss mirror our own.

00:05:37.920 And it also highlights the uncertainty of the southern residents' livelihood, and quite frankly, the livelihood of our planetary community, if we continue to act with reckless abandon.

00:05:50.140 And I see Taliqua's act as a communicative plea to our humanity, as an acute demonstration of the wisdom that these kin possess.

00:06:00.100 So could you begin by sharing with us what Lummi cosmology might make of this happening

00:06:07.480 and what place orcas occupy within Lummi cosmology more broadly?

00:06:14.100 Cosmology is one of those words that sort of, you sort of drop back into your eyes,

00:06:18.540 if you know what I mean.

00:06:19.860 I can tell you what I've been told about those questions.

00:06:23.820 There was a time and there was a Lummi word for this in their cosmology.

00:06:29.320 which is spelled 0.71

00:06:30.940 E-L-H-N-E-X-W

00:06:35.300 T-E-X-W

00:06:37.140 and that refers to a time

00:06:40.200 when all life forms were one

00:06:43.660 and related

00:06:45.800 and that time is a time when

00:06:50.600 the Kualalmich and the blackfish

00:06:54.040 and the young ones

00:06:57.540 the humans and others

00:06:59.540 all were

00:07:01.520 one 1.00

00:07:01.920 the Kulalmachin

00:07:05.520 is considered

00:07:06.420 one of the people that lives

00:07:09.380 under the water that's what the word means

00:07:11.520 blackfish

00:07:12.480 so their

00:07:14.580 cosmology like I said is a big word

00:07:17.080 so if you can

00:07:19.220 imagine because that's what it takes

00:07:21.200 right

00:07:21.460 blackfish

00:07:25.480 but take out the image you have in your mind

00:07:27.840 and imagine that people

00:07:29.780 are actually blackfish

00:07:30.880 as much as blackfish are people

00:07:33.340 it's all one family

00:07:35.380 and that's

00:07:37.820 very unusual and it's very unique

00:07:39.600 and the same is true for salmon

00:07:41.540 the salmon woman

00:07:44.740 speaks, spoke 1.00

00:07:46.540 to Lummies 0.98

00:07:47.860 about their sacred obligation

00:07:49.860 to the creation

00:07:52.300 I'm

00:07:55.920 in a very

00:07:58.680 emotional state right now

00:08:02.360 you have to bear with me

00:08:03.220 the fact is that you're right

00:08:07.420 and this is what I've heard

00:08:10.980 the chief of the Lamy Salik

00:08:13.020 is his name say this

00:08:14.460 Talikwa

00:08:16.640 was showing to the world

00:08:20.100 what the ones that live above the water

00:08:24.280 are doing

00:08:24.800 look

00:08:27.020 look at my dead baby

00:08:33.880 look

00:08:36.920 look at my dying ocean

00:08:41.400 look for a thousand miles in 17 days

00:08:48.140 till I put her down

00:08:49.080 and I won't eat

00:08:51.320 all that time

00:08:53.460 the last

00:08:57.760 surviving calf

00:08:59.520 that was born

00:09:02.820 to the J-pods

00:09:05.520 in 2015

00:09:06.260 is missing

00:09:09.580 that calf

00:09:13.040 is called Scarlet J-50

00:09:15.060 and we know from the rake marks 0.64

00:09:19.060 on J50's side 0.99

00:09:22.280 that she was midwifed

00:09:25.100 into birth by other members of the pod

00:09:27.100 midwifed

00:09:27.920 pulled out 1.00

00:09:30.600 of her mother by other

00:09:33.060 killer whales to give life to little Scarlet 0.97

00:09:35.180 pulled out and midwifed 0.63

00:09:37.640 these are the people 0.99

00:09:38.980 that live under the water

00:09:39.960 so yes

00:09:43.020 the Lummi cosmology goes back to

00:09:44.980 that tongue

00:09:46.120 that is

00:09:47.240 known as the every when

00:09:50.820 every when

00:09:51.560 e-v-e-r-y 0.94

00:09:53.640 w-h-e-n and the before time

00:09:56.420 and one time

00:09:57.160 and that's the time we're speaking in now

00:10:00.100 the fact is

00:10:05.900 there are worlds within worlds

00:10:10.440 and the sailor sea is showing us

00:10:12.320 that one world

00:10:14.160 that we are living in is in a deep

00:10:16.540 crisis and the people 1.00

00:10:18.540 that live above the water have to understand

00:10:20.920 they don't own 0.77

00:10:22.720 this place

00:10:23.440 their presidents don't own it

00:10:26.500 their congressmen don't own it

00:10:28.780 they don't own it

00:10:31.640 they were gifted it

00:10:34.180 until that's understood

00:10:37.580 we'll see more dead calves

00:10:40.860 so that's what I have to say to that

00:10:45.360 thank you for your um your emotional connection it really

00:10:53.720 expresses the grief and the pain around these beautiful being these kin that are speaking to

00:11:04.880 us and i i truly believe that so the lumi reverence for their orca kin

00:11:12.860 brings us to the story of Tokatai, or Lolita,

00:11:17.700 an orca who is currently kept at Miami Sequarium in Florida.

00:11:22.760 And I'm wondering if you could share with us this story,

00:11:25.840 beginning with the traumatic capture of Tokatai back in 1970.

00:11:31.220 We have a website which we talked to you about called sacredsea.org,

00:11:37.560 sacredsea allrunstogether.org.

00:11:40.680 And on that website is the work we're doing for the Salis Sea, and part of that work for the Salis Sea is the rescue and repatriation of Tokatai.

00:11:50.480 So on that website is a button called Media Resources, and on that button, Media Resources, are two videos.

00:12:00.840 And one video is a trailer of a film we're doing about the return of Tokatai.

00:12:06.020 it's in production

00:12:07.060 and the other is the chief of the Lummi Nation

00:12:10.340 speaking

00:12:10.960 about Kualalmachin

00:12:13.480 Tokatai

00:12:17.320 if you would see the original footage

00:12:20.600 taken in Penn Cove

00:12:22.880 in 1970

00:12:23.960 it's very hard to even recount

00:12:26.600 but

00:12:26.920 by the captive industry they were herded in

00:12:30.560 by dynamite

00:12:31.320 and

00:12:33.800 underwater explosions

00:12:35.680 they were herded into a cove

00:12:39.140 and they took whale after whale

00:12:44.740 after whale after whale

00:12:46.800 seven whales died, they drowned

00:12:50.260 four young ones died, they were drowned

00:12:53.080 and each of the drowned whales was, their stomachs cut open

00:12:56.540 with cement blocks put in to sink them so they wouldn't be found

00:12:59.340 these were human beings that did this

00:13:02.920 if you hear the keening

00:13:04.920 keening is the sound killer whales

00:13:07.120 make when they are highly distressed

00:13:09.180 people that were in Penn Cove that day

00:13:12.940 will tell you

00:13:13.600 the haunting sounds of the

00:13:16.920 screams of the killer whales

00:13:18.860 of the matriarch spy 0.96

00:13:20.960 hopping desperately to search for their family 0.74

00:13:23.120 as they were taken onto

00:13:24.820 ships and vanished

00:13:26.440 the keening is almost

00:13:29.040 too much

00:13:31.220 to bear

00:13:31.620 Tokatai was taken out of the water that day

00:13:36.260 she was four years old

00:13:37.560 and these

00:13:40.340 captains of the universe

00:13:42.360 of SeaWorld

00:13:45.100 and others

00:13:46.760 who irrigate to themselves 0.77

00:13:48.980 the right to take these beings

00:13:50.740 captive 0.98

00:13:51.540 shipped her off to Miami 0.99

00:13:54.680 this is a whale that lives most of its water 0.99

00:13:58.740 its temperatures average about

00:14:00.720 50 degrees

00:14:01.620 she's taken

00:14:04.880 to Miami

00:14:05.520 at 4 years old

00:14:07.960 17 other whales

00:14:10.880 were shipped off that day to other

00:14:12.560 sea circuses for people

00:14:14.840 to be treated

00:14:16.560 tricks for treats

00:14:18.520 for the whales

00:14:19.340 to educate their kids about

00:14:22.780 killer whales right

00:14:23.480 she was placed in a 0.95

00:14:26.760 concrete tank 80 feet long 0.91

00:14:28.720 and 20 feet deep for 40

00:14:30.620 years

00:14:32.700 she's the only surviving

00:14:36.740 wild orca in North America

00:14:38.540 in captivity

00:14:39.460 she's the last one they all died within 15 years 0.92

00:14:43.060 there was a killer whale placed

00:14:46.560 in the Seaquarium, Miami Seaquarium's

00:14:49.120 tank and if I sound angry

00:14:50.320 it's simply because I am

00:14:51.620 another killer whale was

00:14:54.080 placed in the tank with her, his name was Hugo

00:14:56.320 and Hugo committed suicide

00:15:00.860 smashed his head up and gets a sign of the tank

00:15:06.820 until he was dead, they disposed of his water

00:15:08.540 like waste into a landfill

00:15:09.700 so she was left alone with two young porpoises

00:15:14.500 and she's been there ever since

00:15:16.220 and the Lummi Nation had heard about this some years ago

00:15:18.420 but until recently

00:15:20.540 didn't really bring the full weight to bear

00:15:23.240 to get her free and back to her family 0.55

00:15:24.940 her mother is still alive 1.00

00:15:26.140 her mother is now the matriarch

00:15:28.980 of the El Pod 0.78

00:15:30.540 if you were to go outside

00:15:34.720 Miami Seaquarium

00:15:35.760 stand there in the middle of the night

00:15:38.220 you will hear Tokatai

00:15:40.280 singing

00:15:41.440 you will hear her voice

00:15:43.640 she has done that every night

00:15:48.320 for 47 years

00:15:49.400 so we have and Joel James

00:15:52.140 my colleague and inspiration

00:15:53.980 is a master carver of totem poles

00:15:58.480 and he carves a totem pole

00:16:00.660 in dedication to the reunion

00:16:02.240 and return and rescue of Tokatai

00:16:04.340 so that totem pole is now

00:16:06.320 in Gainesville, Florida

00:16:07.580 at the University of Florida

00:16:08.700 where it's going to be brought out

00:16:09.740 on December 10th for exhibit

00:16:11.620 along with an exhibit at the Sailor Sea

00:16:13.620 as part of our campaign we're working with

00:16:16.100 to get her free, get her here 0.99

00:16:18.680 get her home, get her well

00:16:20.760 get her strong and get her back to her mother

00:16:22.880 and we will do that

00:16:24.980 and it'll be done within two years

00:16:26.340 Miami's Aquarium

00:16:28.440 doesn't take it seriously

00:16:30.840 but they will soon enough

00:16:33.100 they say she's worth 20 million dollars 1.00

00:16:37.200 we're not going to pay anything to get her out of there

00:16:40.800 and the tribe was called

00:16:45.000 to do this by

00:16:45.880 let's put it this way it wasn't a phone call

00:16:48.020 they were told to get this done

00:16:50.840 so we're getting it done 1.00

00:16:52.840 She's with the L-Pod, J-K-N-L-Pod, make up the southern residents. 0.69

00:16:58.640 Southern resident killer whale population spend a lot of their lives in lummy waters, traditional waters. 0.99

00:17:07.080 So we have a sanctuary ready for her to return to near Orcas Island and the San Juan Islands where her family tours by routinely.

00:17:18.300 there will be a moment

00:17:19.660 sometime in the next two and a half years

00:17:22.860 when

00:17:23.260 Tokatai is going to be singing out

00:17:26.860 her song and her mother is going to

00:17:28.940 hear it, she can hear it ten miles away

00:17:30.300 and they are going to

00:17:32.780 reunite

00:17:33.280 and that's our job

00:17:36.040 is to make that moment happen

00:17:37.880 and the Salish Sea when that moment occurs

00:17:40.220 will never look the same again

00:17:42.980 to anybody

00:17:44.020 that's the Tokatai

00:17:47.020 campaign

00:17:47.460 hmm wow kurt that's so raw and hearing the details of these captures is devastating but

00:18:01.460 so necessary for us to hear it's just insane to think in 1970 that over 40 orca calves were

00:18:08.960 captured and sold eight adults were killed at the time and like you were saying the pods were just

00:18:14.260 completely frantic um yeah so i i just feel compelled to underscore just how traumatic

00:18:22.920 the capture of these orcas was like you were saying to this day human residents of the area

00:18:28.880 recall hearing the frantic keens of matriarch orcas as their children were torn from the sea

00:18:34.220 by helicopters similarly resident orcas avoid pen cove where their relatives were stolen and

00:18:42.140 have done so for the past 50 years. In an article written by J. Julius, who you had mentioned the

00:18:48.380 chairman of the Lummi Nation, Julius writes, quote, just like Tokatai, members of the Lummi Nation

00:18:54.220 have endured centuries of destructive policies. Policies that separated our families, depleted

00:19:00.380 our salmon runs, desecrated our sacred sites, and reduced our traditional fishing areas to a fraction

00:19:05.940 of what they once were. These policies and willful disregard for our treaties have damaged the health

00:19:12.880 of the Salish Sea and negatively impacted the well-being of our people." I'm curious about

00:19:20.360 the connections between government policy that separated human families, as well as those that

00:19:26.920 have done the same to the southern residents. How do these stories of separation tell one another,

00:19:33.200 and how does Tokatai's abduction reflect the failure of policy to protect the sailor sea

00:19:39.200 well that's a that's a important question i think it has many different levels that you come in to

00:19:46.560 try to answer it i'm going to pretend to know most of the answers but one thing it speaks to

00:19:52.740 There's something clearly out of order in the way our society deals with life forms, even their own.

00:20:07.780 There's something seriously wrong with all of this.

00:20:10.480 It's not just normal.

00:20:12.600 It's not just normal for a person to come into the community and steal children.

00:20:18.960 but what's

00:20:21.680 painfully normal is the ability

00:20:23.440 for people to rationalize

00:20:25.620 doing it

00:20:26.580 everyone that

00:20:29.480 did these things, these government agents

00:20:31.920 or these

00:20:34.220 agents of the

00:20:35.660 sea circuit industry

00:20:36.780 they may be

00:20:39.840 great brothers and mothers

00:20:41.820 but yet they do

00:20:43.680 these things

00:20:44.460 and they can explain

00:20:47.720 So, you know, I was told once by a woman who counseled battered women, and I got to know her fairly well.

00:20:55.700 She once told me, there's only one thing most important.

00:21:03.100 And it is how you explain yourself to yourself.

00:21:10.560 Everything flows from that.

00:21:12.060 I actually met

00:21:15.200 a gentleman who was involved

00:21:17.680 in the captures

00:21:19.100 in Penn Cove

00:21:20.880 when he was 15

00:21:22.340 he was part of the capture team

00:21:24.780 I said how could you do that

00:21:29.600 and he said well I was only 15

00:21:32.320 and I said well I was 15 once

00:21:33.560 I wouldn't have done that

00:21:34.420 it's complicated

00:21:37.180 but now he's involved

00:21:39.600 in orca rescue

00:21:40.420 so it came back to haunt him

00:21:45.000 I think I fear

00:21:48.800 and I hope that my fears are wrong

00:21:51.140 that there's something missing

00:21:53.100 in the way we treat

00:21:56.580 life

00:21:58.500 not just orcas

00:22:01.180 but each other

00:22:03.920 there's something missing

00:22:06.520 in the day to day cruelty we see

00:22:09.720 in the paper

00:22:10.740 I had a dear friend

00:22:14.360 who was very involved

00:22:15.820 in Buddhism

00:22:17.260 she's a

00:22:17.840 very well placed

00:22:19.940 in that tradition

00:22:21.100 and she went to

00:22:22.460 a seven month

00:22:23.740 silent retreat

00:22:24.600 seven months

00:22:25.400 of silence

00:22:27.000 and he said

00:22:28.860 what was the hardest thing

00:22:29.840 when you came out

00:22:30.540 he said the front page

00:22:36.120 of a newspaper

00:22:36.740 violence after violence

00:22:40.420 after violence

00:22:41.420 the front page stories of

00:22:44.100 people being less than human

00:22:45.880 to their world and each other and I think

00:22:48.020 killer whales

00:22:50.020 and boarding schools

00:22:51.960 draw a line

00:22:55.520 that we need to pay attention to

00:22:57.920 that we're being

00:22:58.680 we're being

00:23:00.460 how can I put this

00:23:03.040 molded

00:23:04.500 by a system or a process or something

00:23:08.580 to do things unspeakably cruel to each other

00:23:12.500 and to perfectly innocent lifeforms

00:23:15.460 that have done nothing to us

00:23:17.360 but inhabit the same planet.

00:23:21.840 There's something missing.

00:23:24.360 There's a presence of an absence.

00:23:27.700 And that's, I think, what connects

00:23:29.340 what a human being can do to a sentient being.

00:23:34.500 That has the form of a killer whale and how a human being can do that to a six-month-old native child, carrying it from the arms of its mother and shipping it 2,000 miles away.

00:23:45.700 you know I

00:23:49.180 Jewel and I have worked around the world

00:23:51.500 and one time we found ourselves in Brazil

00:23:55.240 having an audience with a gentleman who was trying to stop

00:23:59.600 the construction

00:24:00.220 of a nuclear power plant

00:24:03.560 they were going to build on the coast between Rio de Janeiro

00:24:05.500 and Sao Paulo and we thought

00:24:06.760 well there's madness

00:24:08.560 so we're having an audience with this gentleman

00:24:13.300 who was fighting it and he was asked

00:24:15.420 are you an optimist

00:24:19.120 he laughed and he said no

00:24:22.640 no no I'm not

00:24:23.680 I'm hopeful

00:24:25.360 I

00:24:28.140 I have been so distressed by this

00:24:32.380 that I had to go see a therapist

00:24:34.580 and I said to her 1.00

00:24:38.900 J50 0.54

00:24:42.840 and the residents

00:24:44.880 I said I can't stop crying

00:24:47.460 I know why

00:24:53.020 she said to me

00:24:57.060 she said to me

00:24:59.600 because you work

00:25:02.840 every day

00:25:03.720 with people

00:25:06.980 with great empathy

00:25:08.460 for their world

00:25:10.520 and

00:25:14.880 and it's true

00:25:17.440 empathy

00:25:21.980 is

00:25:23.140 the ability to take on the impressions

00:25:28.480 of the other

00:25:29.140 and I think that

00:25:34.280 when the world saw that

00:25:36.080 grieving mother

00:25:39.020 it took on that mother's

00:25:44.480 song

00:25:46.660 and a kind of mea culpa

00:25:54.060 one can only hope that

00:26:03.360 one can only hope that we find 1.00

00:26:08.140 J50 little Scarlet alive 0.98

00:26:09.820 seems unlikely

00:26:13.460 I was mentioning this to someone here in the tribe about how this morning the residents, very unusual, were all traveling together and the J-pod was in the lead, tight formation.

00:26:43.460 And the lead of the J-Pod was J-50's mother.

00:26:56.260 It's called the Grief Formation.

00:27:00.200 the entire resident population

00:27:05.640 standing with the mother

00:27:09.180 who probably just lost her

00:27:11.680 four year old baby

00:27:13.700 that wasn't in the formation

00:27:17.640 and nobody knows where it is

00:27:19.000 I need to say this though

00:27:22.900 it didn't have to turn out this way

00:27:25.320 J50 could have been

00:27:31.820 saved 0.96

00:27:34.380 but she died more than likely 0.86

00:27:40.020 she died of starvation

00:27:41.300 her mother was trying to feed her

00:27:43.160 her family shared their food with her

00:27:46.080 isn't that amazing

00:27:46.700 but it wasn't nurturing her because

00:27:50.140 well we don't know why

00:27:51.900 because they're living

00:27:55.160 in a sick ocean

00:27:56.820 we here in the tribe

00:28:00.960 participate in the governor of the state

00:28:03.120 of Washington's southern resident

00:28:05.220 killer whale task force

00:28:07.120 yeah

00:28:08.800 well

00:28:09.320 it's not rocket science what these

00:28:13.120 killer whales need, they need food

00:28:15.120 they need 580,000

00:28:20.820 pounds of Chinook a year

00:28:23.020 survive.

00:28:27.800 They're not getting

00:28:28.760 one-tenth of that.

00:28:33.080 If they really cared about this,

00:28:34.720 rather than having task force debate over how many

00:28:36.940 angels can dance on the head

00:28:38.940 of a pin, all they've got to do is

00:28:40.780 take down the Snake River dams.

00:28:42.820 They can do that in two months. They don't even need

00:28:44.920 congressional approval to do it.

00:28:48.320 That's where 0.55

00:28:48.900 the Chinook were decimated.

00:28:50.820 for those dams.

00:28:55.420 But no, instead they're talking about

00:28:57.880 slowing down ferries.

00:29:01.200 Or asking tribes to stop fishing in areas 0.94

00:29:03.860 that they're entitled to.

00:29:07.820 You know, it's madness.

00:29:12.060 You know, one thing I'll mention to you,

00:29:13.920 the four dams on the Lower Snake River

00:29:16.580 on the Columbia

00:29:17.320 have produced only two hours

00:29:21.500 of electricity that's been needed

00:29:23.200 in the last ten years.

00:29:26.620 Two hours.

00:29:29.500 Why do we have those dams? 0.89

00:29:35.000 75% of all the schnook 1.00

00:29:36.600 that try to get down that river 1.00

00:29:37.820 are crushed in the dams.

00:29:42.880 You know, it's kind of decision time

00:29:44.600 and I think people that

00:29:49.320 love your show

00:29:50.420 we honor them

00:29:52.900 have to

00:29:59.280 help us understand how we can

00:30:01.340 turn this big ship of a way of life

00:30:03.880 perched

00:30:04.900 on the edge of the Salish Sea that is

00:30:07.620 destroying it

00:30:08.460 because that's what's going on

00:30:14.920 I mean this is

00:30:15.840 they say

00:30:16.360 when industry arrives

00:30:18.360 salmon go away

00:30:19.320 and when salmon goes away

00:30:21.060 killer whales die

00:30:22.200 Chinook

00:30:24.040 is the only food

00:30:25.600 southern residents will eat

00:30:27.340 they don't eat anything else

00:30:29.280 if there's no Chinook

00:30:31.800 you don't have any southern residents 0.99

00:30:34.980 it is

00:30:36.580 a situation

00:30:41.540 that we simply have to understand

00:30:43.680 we can win this, but

00:30:45.580 not without an awful lot of

00:30:47.420 leaning into the issue and sacrifice.

00:30:56.900 Okay, for the wild community, here are a few

00:30:59.640 action points that you can take immediately

00:31:01.820 after the show.

00:31:03.660 So Southern residents are struggling for

00:31:05.640 survival due to the accumulation of threats, mainly a lack of Chinook salmon due to habitat loss,

00:31:12.280 vessel noise, and chemical pollutants. If you care about the Southern Resident Orcas,

00:31:16.920 we encourage you to contact Governor Jay Ensley at 360-902-4111 and insist that Washington take

00:31:27.700 the appropriate measures as outlined in the Southern Resident Orca Task Force's final report

00:31:33.620 and recommendations. It's important that Governor Inslee knows that the global community is watching

00:31:39.680 and expects swift action to be taken. For further ways to support and more information on submitting

00:31:46.520 a public comment on the draft EIS for the Columbia River System, visit this episode page at

00:31:53.040 forthewild.world. If this cause is close to your heart and you live around the Salish Sea,

00:31:59.780 we encourage you to visit sacredsea.org and learn how you can support Indigenous leadership

00:32:05.500 and ancestral teachings when it comes to restoring the Salish Sea.

00:32:13.460 I want to talk a little bit more about the issue of the Chinook salmon,

00:32:21.700 basically the collapse of salmon fisheries in Washington, Oregon, California, British Columbia,

00:32:29.780 and now alaska and i've been up in alaska for the last two and a half months and been

00:32:38.320 doing interviews with people around salmon uh basically being on a listening tour and it's

00:32:44.520 really devastating to hear in these last vestiges of intact ecosystems that people have been saying

00:32:54.920 I don't know where the kings are we don't know where the coho or the they call them the silvers

00:33:00.040 they're not coming back we don't know where they're going they're going out to sea they're

00:33:03.500 not coming back and there's a lot of questions and a lot of confusion and and just really not

00:33:10.380 knowing why they're not coming home the the salmon so I'd like to hear more from you about

00:33:20.420 the Chinook specifically and what's happening to the fisheries in Washington and in near the

00:33:26.900 Salish Sea why do you think although we could state some obvious pointers of why we think

00:33:32.760 they're collapsing I'd like to hear from you your point of view on their collapse and you know what

00:33:38.100 is their state in the area and what are what are the things that people can do to support the return

00:33:46.160 of the fisheries.

00:33:49.220 Yeah, it's been known for three decades or more

00:33:54.660 what the basic problem is

00:33:56.280 in terms of the 98% reduction of salmon runs

00:34:01.140 between 1920 and 1990, 98%.

00:34:05.460 And an awful lot of that,

00:34:08.040 whether it's whatever part of your talk,

00:34:10.400 in the Washington State Pacific Northwest,

00:34:12.880 a lot of it's habitat loss.

00:34:14.160 they've lost their

00:34:16.680 they can't even get to where they need to spawn

00:34:18.740 and when they get there the spawning grounds

00:34:20.920 are no longer viable

00:34:21.960 habitat loss is a lot of it

00:34:24.880 not all of it but a lot of it

00:34:26.280 a lot of it

00:34:27.220 and it's one of those things which

00:34:30.200 it is

00:34:33.160 allowing

00:34:36.340 window dressing to pass as a solution

00:34:39.060 for example having buffer zones

00:34:41.080 I love that one

00:34:42.580 buffer zones along a stream

00:34:44.520 and above the buffer zone, well, you can do anything.

00:34:48.800 It's a laughable.

00:34:49.680 Like I said, my degree is in forestry.

00:34:51.520 We knew in forestry in 1968

00:34:53.540 what you had to do to protect salmon.

00:34:56.020 The science is not new,

00:34:57.320 though they always seem to need more of it.

00:34:59.700 But science doesn't make its way

00:35:01.480 into politics and it doesn't make

00:35:03.520 its way into practices on the ground

00:35:05.540 because it is not

00:35:06.460 profitable

00:35:08.040 to do it responsibly.

00:35:10.620 in the Nooksack Basion where I am now.

00:35:15.060 It would take a century.

00:35:18.160 You get the habitat back.

00:35:22.540 Habitat loss, and then you have

00:35:24.360 contamination.

00:35:27.880 I mean, the Salish Sea,

00:35:30.200 especially in the southern portions,

00:35:31.680 but really,

00:35:33.560 I'll give you an example.

00:35:35.340 Down in Seattle,

00:35:36.020 when the

00:35:38.480 beginning of World War II

00:35:41.520 and the Japanese were forcibly removed from their

00:35:43.540 homes and sent to various camps

00:35:45.120 quote unquote there were a lot of

00:35:47.340 strawberry farmers

00:35:48.380 Japanese strawberry farmers that

00:35:50.800 had truck farms

00:35:53.520 in the Seattle area

00:35:54.420 guess who owns their land now

00:35:57.460 Boeing

00:35:59.000 so Boeing moved in and took their land

00:36:02.960 to build

00:36:05.360 whatever they build

00:36:06.220 One of the places that they build military drones is some of the most important salmon estuary in southern Puget Sound that they have completely destroyed.

00:36:21.720 Habitat loss, contaminants, whether it comes from off the roads, through the sewage system, out of boats and ships, it's just an endless stream of contamination.

00:36:33.140 everyone knows the salmon

00:36:35.780 that the killer whales are eating

00:36:38.880 are contaminated

00:36:41.120 the salmon that the seals are eating are contaminated

00:36:45.420 and why is it contaminated because we don't have

00:36:49.760 state of the art wastewater treatment systems

00:36:53.080 we don't have them

00:36:54.280 it's aging infrastructure

00:36:57.320 I think overfishing is the least

00:37:01.500 of our worries

00:37:03.180 right now it's simply

00:37:06.020 managing extinction and fighting over

00:37:08.220 the last fish

00:37:09.000 rather than addressing the problems

00:37:11.600 the tribes to their credit 1.00

00:37:13.340 and one of the great ironies

00:37:16.040 of history I think

00:37:17.000 is trying to save

00:37:20.200 financial capitalism from itself

00:37:24.120 and the endless pursuit of profit

00:37:29.120 short term

00:37:30.320 the unconscionable socialization

00:37:35.260 of cost

00:37:35.900 that goes on and on

00:37:38.800 these are things that need to be addressed

00:37:41.460 I am hopeful that

00:37:43.540 the younger generation has not been so brainwashed

00:37:47.780 by a system that is overtly unfair

00:37:51.100 to everyone but a small percentage

00:37:52.720 that they are woke to a situation

00:37:56.020 that this is a non-sustainable system

00:37:59.020 if they want to have

00:38:01.780 now I'll mention something to you

00:38:04.580 I had dinner in California

00:38:06.240 with some very interesting people

00:38:09.300 sitting at my table in Paradise Cove

00:38:11.640 down there near Malibu

00:38:12.740 was a Navajo medicine man

00:38:14.080 and his wife

00:38:15.540 my host was the director

00:38:18.180 that's organized the foundation

00:38:20.920 of indigenous medicine 0.76

00:38:21.740 and a young woman

00:38:23.040 who has just started up her fifth

00:38:26.280 startup high tech startup 0.66

00:38:27.920 her fifth she's also an olympian medalist mother of two i mean you know one of those people 0.99

00:38:37.560 and she creates virtual reality and security software security software for 0.90

00:38:48.280 the white house and the nsa she said two things i want to mention

00:38:55.220 and she said i can quote her on this said i can teach a nine-year-old to hack into our

00:39:02.960 electoral system a nine-year-old one thing and the second thing she said is i really prefer the

00:39:11.720 virtual world the real one that terrifies me what really i hope that i'm hopeful that

00:39:21.240 through programs such as yours

00:39:23.460 and people such as you and your listeners

00:39:25.480 that we don't lose the real world to the virtual one

00:39:29.780 because the virtual one is, how do I put this?

00:39:32.360 It's not real.

00:39:34.760 And as we compromise the real world,

00:39:37.120 some people are going to escape into their headsets

00:39:39.100 or their earphones.

00:39:42.340 That would be a tragedy.

00:39:44.800 And I really appreciate work you do

00:39:47.060 to keep people connected to the real one.

00:39:49.540 the real one

00:39:51.820 because that's the one we are actually

00:39:54.360 birthed from

00:39:55.600 we didn't create it

00:39:58.020 we were created by it

00:40:01.920 and as

00:40:03.620 I mentioned

00:40:04.900 in the

00:40:06.660 before time

00:40:08.400 we were all one

00:40:10.080 and it wasn't one in a headset

00:40:11.800 I couldn't agree more

00:40:16.340 with you

00:40:17.180 it's just I see a lot of people turning towards virtual reality and I was at a Best Buy a few

00:40:27.880 months ago and it was really horrifying I hadn't been into one of those stores for a really long

00:40:33.500 time and the first thing I saw was this poster of a woman with one of those headsets you know

00:40:42.100 face masks on and I'm like oh my goodness this is where we're going we're gonna look into a screen

00:40:49.620 at a forest and an ocean filled with orcas but if we take that mask off we'll see clear cuts and

00:40:55.840 dead oceans because we are in so many ways being distracted and lost by a world that isn't real

00:41:02.060 it's these you know if you take a picture with a camera you can create a frame that isn't what

00:41:11.260 reality is you can just you know take a take a picture but you know if you actually turn 360

00:41:16.380 you'd see a very different a very different view and i think this these extinction crises and what

00:41:25.540 happened with taliqua it is these loud cries to wake up and you know thinking that there's only

00:41:32.000 76 southern residents left and 30 well less than 30 have the potential to breed you know some

00:41:39.860 suggest that if immediate action isn't taken, the southern resident orcas could become extinct

00:41:45.120 within the next 15 years. So waking up is mandatory if we say we care about our kin. If we really say

00:41:54.640 that we care and we want to actually live up to that, we need to do something. And we've been

00:41:58.700 talking a little bit about the Snake River Dam and the issues of, we haven't gone into this,

00:42:05.380 but the recreational and commercial vessel traffic the noises that that make underwater how that

00:42:10.660 can psychologically and communicatively affect the whales the pollution you had mentioned the

00:42:17.200 pollution the ongoing threats of future pipelines um salmon atlantic salmon fish farms in bc so of

00:42:24.840 course like there are a lot of stressors but we need to look at these stressors because if we

00:42:30.680 don't look at them with honesty we're never going to be able to do something about it and it's true

00:42:37.320 the population of whales has declined to its lowest levels in 30 years has decreased 20 percent since

00:42:43.540 the since the late 90s so i i just wanted to bring those things up and then back to mentioning

00:42:49.880 chinook the fact that two-thirds of the southern residents pregnancies have failed due to starvation

00:42:57.280 Additionally, the lack of food forces orcas to burn their body fat, which ends up releasing

00:43:02.400 toxins like DDT and flame retardants into their system, further suppressing their reproductive

00:43:08.300 health.

00:43:09.940 So, you know, these are, again, these are things that we really need to look at the starvation.

00:43:15.120 And one thing that I had read while getting ready for this interview is that since 2002,

00:43:21.060 too, the EIS has designated dam breaching as the best solution to recover wild salmon on the Snake

00:43:27.360 River. And they said that if it was breached, it would double or triple the survival rate of Chinook

00:43:32.600 salmon. So I wanted to bring that up because yeah, I kind of just mentioned a lot of really hard

00:43:39.080 facts around the numbers of extinction and starvation and all of the issues that are affecting

00:43:46.560 salmon which then in turn are affecting orcas but then again look if we take out the snake river dam

00:43:52.180 that is something that we can do that would have massive positive consequences so it's not that

00:43:58.900 there aren't solutions but getting to those solutions really prioritizing those is where

00:44:04.980 we need to go and that's i feel like what you were saying with the economic capitalist technological

00:44:10.400 uh gosh just delusion to be able to get out of that so we can actually do the things that need

00:44:17.680 to be done it's a curious thing you have a natural condition salmon want to be in the

00:44:22.680 columbia river and the snake river eastern washington doesn't want to be wheat it's a

00:44:29.060 desert so they create these dams to sustain an artificial way of life at the expense of a real

00:44:37.660 one i mean if you look at the palouse the bioregion of the palouse it is the most compromised

00:44:47.500 bioregion in north america so little remains of what it once was i want to mention one thing

00:44:55.300 though about the chinook back a second to your folks in listening canada or even in the northwest

00:45:02.780 are aware that just

00:45:04.740 north of the border here

00:45:06.580 is a very large coal terminal

00:45:08.540 called

00:45:10.280 very large, very

00:45:12.780 polluting

00:45:13.180 well, you mentioned ship noise

00:45:16.820 the

00:45:18.740 idea they now have

00:45:20.040 is to create

00:45:22.560 another

00:45:23.080 platform

00:45:25.280 that will service

00:45:27.380 ships, container ships

00:45:30.580 you ready for this

00:45:32.680 these ships

00:45:34.100 imagine a football field

00:45:36.060 now walk across four of them

00:45:38.700 that's how big the ships are

00:45:40.720 they want to have 0.90

00:45:43.380 three of those

00:45:45.440 going right over primary orca

00:45:47.260 foraging habitat every two days

00:45:48.900 year round

00:45:50.900 and they say

00:45:54.020 this is an example

00:45:55.580 of the

00:45:56.220 disingenuous nature of EIS

00:45:59.840 anything government

00:46:01.780 does an EIS comment to do by October 5th, and then the EIS says, well, you know, this

00:46:07.840 many ships is only a 6% increase in the already existing vessel traffic, and anyway, the southern

00:46:13.820 residents are so highly compromised and won't make much difference.

00:46:19.320 That's the mindset of people that are going to make a lot of money off these ships.

00:46:23.820 But we, you know, the people here

00:46:28.060 I think it's really important that they understand

00:46:32.200 There may come a time, and it may not be far off

00:46:34.860 When they're going to have to put themselves on the line

00:46:38.140 And their fists in the air, and their feet on the ground

00:46:42.080 And say, enough

00:46:44.680 Stop

00:46:46.920 That's what it's going to take

00:46:49.760 Yeah, I know voting's important, yeah, right

00:46:52.880 yes, but

00:46:54.600 feet on the ground and fists in the air

00:46:57.160 is also important

00:46:57.980 there will be no fishing rights

00:47:01.180 for tribes in the northwest 1.00

00:47:02.200 if men and women hadn't gone to jail

00:47:05.140 breaking what was then the law

00:47:07.260 to create

00:47:09.400 a new and better one

00:47:10.600 and unless people

00:47:13.140 are willing to stand the line

00:47:14.400 take off their earphones

00:47:16.640 take off their headsets

00:47:18.180 and rejoin the world, the real one 0.97

00:47:20.840 we're going to lose it 0.95

00:47:22.440 I taught a class

00:47:23.960 at the University of Washington

00:47:25.040 forest economics

00:47:26.800 and you know

00:47:29.960 you got a final

00:47:30.700 everyone gets all bleary eyed

00:47:32.160 and they're up all night

00:47:33.040 and you know

00:47:33.560 they come in for the final

00:47:35.560 and I said

00:47:36.020 well

00:47:37.240 you all ready

00:47:38.040 for your two hour final

00:47:39.000 so put all the

00:47:42.480 chairs in a circle

00:47:43.740 and I said

00:47:45.820 I want everyone

00:47:46.440 to give me

00:47:47.060 their definition

00:47:47.880 of extinction

00:47:48.760 that's a big word you know

00:47:53.860 you used that word a while ago

00:47:57.680 and I think sometimes that word

00:48:00.140 it's like skipping a stone across the human mind

00:48:02.180 they don't quite pause for a moment

00:48:04.720 and think about that

00:48:06.200 millions of years dedicated to creation of a life form

00:48:10.580 because of someone wanting to make

00:48:12.840 a short term profit for a small number of people

00:48:15.360 goes extinct 1.00

00:48:17.740 I really believe that tribes

00:48:22.760 probably more than anyone right now

00:48:25.260 are the best chance

00:48:30.700 we have and I really encourage people

00:48:34.280 to stand with tribes when they're standing up for their treaty rights

00:48:37.920 because treaty rights protect everybody

00:48:40.540 everybody

00:48:43.000 I think personally even more than the constitution does at this

00:48:47.680 point at least in this country so we're hopeful here we will always be hopeful and i want to if

00:48:56.540 you if i can before we started this i i i wanted to mention this one

00:49:02.260 verse written by wendell burry do you mind if i read it please because we have these moments and

00:49:09.900 And we look for a place to resort to our souls and regain our spirits.

00:49:19.660 It's a piece he wrote called, The Peace of Wild Things.

00:49:25.220 when despair

00:49:31.280 for the world grows in me

00:49:32.720 and I wake in the night

00:49:36.980 at the least sound in fear of what my life

00:49:39.280 and my children's lives may be

00:49:40.920 I go and lie down

00:49:45.400 where the wood drake rests

00:49:47.080 in his beauty on the water

00:49:48.640 and the great heron feeds

00:49:51.480 I come into the peace of wild things

00:49:57.580 who do not tax their lives

00:49:59.260 with forethought of grief

00:50:00.720 I come into the presence of still water

00:50:05.360 and I feel above me

00:50:09.520 the day blind stars

00:50:11.240 waiting with their light

00:50:12.480 for a time I rest

00:50:17.640 in the grace of the world

00:50:19.180 and am free

00:50:21.960 so our

00:50:27.460 our prayers go to J50 and her mother

00:50:30.780 her family

00:50:31.960 the Sailor Sea and all our relations

00:50:36.480 and to your listeners that they keep their hope up

00:50:42.120 even if their pessimism grows

00:50:44.200 stay hopeful because as one person once told me

00:50:47.600 you're an activist

00:50:50.720 you are not allowed

00:50:54.460 to lose hope

00:51:17.600 Thank you.

00:51:47.600 I think about how she wasn't the only orca ripped from her home, as you had mentioned.

00:51:55.480 In fact, throughout the 1960s and 70s, one-third of the southern residents were taken and sold to parks all over the world.

00:52:03.880 Today, she is the sole survivor of those calves who were taken from the Salish Sea.

00:52:09.060 As orcas who live in captivity often live less than half of their traditional life expectancies.

00:52:13.980 expectancies. So I'm wondering what are the mental, physical, and emotional stresses of

00:52:19.800 living in captivity without the companionship of other orcas? And why do you think she has survived

00:52:26.120 when others have not? And could it be said that she has remained resilient by remembering her

00:52:31.860 home and the songs of her pod? That's certainly true. There's a number of, I've asked that

00:52:38.780 question of people that know a lot more than I do

00:52:40.800 about her and about

00:52:41.840 blackfish

00:52:43.800 one answer that has stayed with

00:52:46.920 me is

00:52:47.420 she's in a tank 1.00

00:52:50.960 she's in an open air tank 1.00

00:52:52.700 close to the water

00:52:53.660 she hears

00:52:55.920 the ocean

00:52:57.920 she may think

00:53:00.980 her family's not far away

00:53:04.380 that's why she sings

00:53:06.780 every night

00:53:07.260 I don't know if you saw that part of the video in which Dateline TV show went to Seaquarium with a recording of the L-Pod's songs.

00:53:25.200 And they went to the side of the tank.

00:53:28.980 And where the Seaquarium minders had stepped away for a while, they turned on the tape recorder.

00:53:35.640 practically nose to nose

00:53:38.960 with the guy holding the tape recorder

00:53:40.440 over and over again

00:53:44.080 she heard her songs

00:53:46.600 she heard her pause

00:53:48.220 that was 1998 I believe

00:53:51.340 she's never stopped singing her song

00:53:53.920 I mentioned that I

00:53:56.920 have worked with a man who was involved in her capture

00:54:00.700 he was also one of her first trainers

00:54:02.440 and he said Tokatai

00:54:06.960 she's an unusual girl

00:54:10.540 she's very unusual

00:54:12.980 she is indeed 1.00

00:54:17.100 she's also high as a kite

00:54:19.420 she's on 14 different kinds of medications 1.00

00:54:22.160 she lives in a chlorinated pool 0.99

00:54:25.460 in Miami in the sun

00:54:28.020 so she's on a lot of medications

00:54:32.240 no one really knows

00:54:35.240 her actual state of health

00:54:36.560 be that as it may

00:54:38.620 she displays vigor

00:54:39.860 you see when no one's around 1.00

00:54:41.900 she's racing around the pool 1.00

00:54:43.120 she's still happy to be a killer whale 0.96

00:54:46.360 I think because she really believes 0.96

00:54:48.180 she's going home

00:54:48.860 I was at

00:54:50.240 we went there

00:54:52.840 with one of the Indians

00:54:55.060 they followed us

00:54:58.660 they knew who we were

00:55:00.780 before we even got there

00:55:01.880 was standing

00:55:04.500 by the side of the

00:55:06.280 tank

00:55:08.860 and a Lummi

00:55:10.860 tribal member, councilman and very

00:55:12.940 inspired leader

00:55:14.360 Fred Lane

00:55:16.940 is standing with his arms folded across his chest

00:55:19.200 looking in the water

00:55:20.080 down below

00:55:22.040 she was all the way

00:55:24.960 on the other side of the pond there 1.00

00:55:26.720 the tank, she turns 1.00

00:55:28.720 180 degrees and swims right 1.00

00:55:30.940 over to you and just hangs

00:55:32.960 in the water

00:55:33.980 so I'm going on there

00:55:38.180 it happened twice

00:55:40.680 two different visits

00:55:42.060 so when that was

00:55:46.200 when it happened the first time

00:55:47.980 and Fred

00:55:50.040 moved aside to recompose his prayers

00:55:52.760 she went back to where she'd come from

00:55:56.340 so I walked around

00:55:58.660 the side of the aquarium

00:55:59.720 I said

00:56:01.620 to the people standing there

00:56:04.540 can I say hi to her

00:56:05.360 and this one gentleman

00:56:08.680 probably in his mid 40s goes

00:56:10.220 no

00:56:11.180 said I can't say hi to her

00:56:13.980 said no

00:56:16.620 but you can say hi to me

00:56:18.500 and I said okay 1.00

00:56:20.940 where's she from

00:56:24.720 and he gave me that

00:56:26.940 that look

00:56:27.900 and he said

00:56:30.140 you know exactly where she's from

00:56:32.740 and then asked me to leave

00:56:35.900 he is the curator

00:56:39.480 of her

00:56:42.140 at the aquarium

00:56:43.080 that's her master

00:56:44.280 I'm sure

00:56:47.720 he has a great family life

00:56:49.760 he's a wonderful man

00:56:50.680 I'm not saying he isn't

00:56:51.820 but I am saying

00:56:52.760 what they are doing with her

00:56:54.180 is beyond evil

00:56:56.760 she needs to come home

00:56:58.940 and they know it

00:56:59.720 but I also need to say this 1.00

00:57:01.380 the women 1.00

00:57:03.020 that work with her 1.00

00:57:04.660 on a daily basis

00:57:05.700 love her

00:57:06.840 there is no doubt

00:57:08.920 in my mind

00:57:09.560 they love

00:57:11.340 Tokatai

00:57:12.840 management

00:57:14.960 not so much

00:57:16.380 cash cow

00:57:17.620 but they

00:57:19.140 really

00:57:20.520 love that girl

00:57:21.740 you can see it

00:57:23.840 so she does have that connection 0.81

00:57:27.320 but it's also

00:57:28.740 kind of the Stockholm Syndrome 0.99

00:57:30.420 she is a black fish 0.98

00:57:32.840 she needs a family 1.00

00:57:34.440 these women are her family 1.00

00:57:36.360 when she comes back here 1.00

00:57:40.100 we're going to fly her back 0.99

00:57:42.740 that'll express 1.00

00:57:43.800 in one big plane 1.00

00:57:47.260 and she's going to land

00:57:50.820 at Bellingham International Airport

00:57:52.320 she's going to be 0.55

00:57:55.420 taken to the water 0.76

00:57:56.820 slowly taken out

00:58:00.800 to the sanctuary

00:58:02.460 in Orcas Island

00:58:03.460 she's going to have her 1.00

00:58:07.040 handlers, she's going to be a veterinarian 1.00

00:58:08.520 she's going to have everyone she needs 0.98

00:58:10.360 to reassure her

00:58:12.040 she's okay

00:58:13.160 and then she's going to start going for walks

00:58:16.940 out into the water and back again 0.99

00:58:20.140 out into the water and back again 1.00

00:58:21.700 she's going to learn to feed herself again 1.00

00:58:23.380 and avoid ships

00:58:25.160 and then that day will come 0.95

00:58:27.800 when her mother's going to go by and go

00:58:29.480 I know that voice

00:58:31.900 that is a healing moment

00:58:35.960 for the L-Pod

00:58:38.080 from a trauma that as you said

00:58:41.160 they have never gone back to Penn Cove again

00:58:43.120 they were traumatized

00:58:45.600 just like 1.00

00:58:46.300 native folks taken from family 1.00

00:58:49.600 and put in boarding schools

00:58:50.400 they were traumatized

00:58:51.320 her coming back to her family

00:58:56.460 will be a healing for that

00:58:58.940 pod

00:58:59.440 and they need it 0.99

00:59:02.600 because likely

00:59:04.840 they just lost another one

00:59:06.460 oh Kurt

00:59:10.200 I've just been

00:59:14.560 on mute crying

00:59:16.360 on the other end

00:59:17.580 yeah I do

00:59:22.020 I feel definitely

00:59:23.800 feeling speechless and I would just

00:59:25.580 like to offer

00:59:27.420 to you any way you feel like closing

00:59:29.860 this conversation

00:59:30.720 if you'd like to call out to

00:59:33.520 Taliqua and

00:59:35.020 Scarlett you know however

00:59:37.540 you wish to

00:59:38.580 close this conversation please

00:59:41.600 well that's hard that's a really hard

00:59:45.400 you know I

00:59:48.560 I had a dream

00:59:50.580 about her

00:59:51.180 and though I don't remember all the images

00:59:54.480 in the dream, the felt sense

00:59:56.160 the felt memory sense

00:59:58.560 of that is what I would send

01:00:00.480 back out

01:00:01.180 you know and for what it's

01:00:04.600 what it might mean

01:00:06.780 is that everything is going to be fine

01:00:12.320 we're going to be alright

01:00:15.660 things will work out

01:00:18.440 because

01:00:20.380 like Scarlett 0.98

01:00:21.920 that fighter

01:00:23.820 that little fighter

01:00:26.800 we

01:00:27.660 we don't lose hope

01:00:30.320 Scarlett

01:00:32.260 we will never

01:00:38.140 lose

01:00:38.860 hope

01:00:40.640 well i will keep my prayers and energy towards scarlet and i

01:00:49.820 for those who will listen i ask you to do the same and kurt thank you so much for your love

01:00:59.860 and dedication to the sailor sea illumination and our more than human kin the black fish

01:01:09.340 um thank you for spending this time with us today and we'll continue staying abreast of what

01:01:18.080 is to come and take our actions from you all thank you and thank you to all listeners for

01:01:27.800 for listening thanks for listening to another episode of for the wild podcast i'm production

01:01:34.700 team member, Cardaloo McElroy, and the music you heard today was from Mon Plaisir and Amoeba.

01:01:40.040 I'd like to thank our host and founder, Ayanna Young, as well as the rest of our podcast

01:01:44.160 production team, Aidan McRae, Andrew Storrs, Erica Ekrem, Aaron Wise, Francesca Glassbell,

01:01:51.040 Hannah Wilton, and Melanie Younger.

For The Wild - March 11, 2020

KURT RUSSO on the People Under the Sea⌠ENCORE⌡ ⧸162

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