Kiska the Orca

Orca by Saeeda

Grade 4 students at Grenoble PS had a great time learning about orcas during their recent Keep It Wild workshop. They had a chance to build food chains, study spectrograms, experience sound waves travelling through bone, and try their best to catch their prey using echolocation. (We all agreed that orcas are way better at echolocation then humans!) 

After learning about the bond that orcas form with their families, many students were concerned to find out that Kiska, a captive orca whale at Marineland, is living alone, without any other orcas to socialize with. Many of their orca pictures featured another orca for Kiska to play with and communicate with.

Kiska and her friend! by Zachariah

2 or more by Tabassum

Kiska and her family hunting by Ezhil

Kiska having fun with her friend by Wida

 The students wrote postcards to share their ideas and opinions about orcas in captivity. Many students suggested changing her captive habitat so that she could have more space, could hunt live prey, and could socialize with another whale. Other students hoped that Kiska might some day be released back into the wild.

Kiska can be sent into the wild by Ashwini

Stay tuned for more great pictures from the grade 4 Grenoble students.

Keep It Wild is back in the classroom!

Our animal-themed workshops are back in the classroom for the 2013-2014 school year, and our blog is back too, after a bit of a hiatus! Today the first workshop of the new school year was delivered, our Awesome Orcas workshop for grade 4's.

During one of our discussions about how orcas live and communicate within their family pods, several students referred to individual whales as people.  When India put a ban on the import and capture of cetaceans (whales and dolphins) for entertainment this past summer, they released a statement noting that dolphins [and whales] are highly intelligent and should be considered 'non-human persons'. The idea of a non-human person seems like a concept that scientists, lawyers and ethicists might be discussing, but it seems that nine-year-olds are also more than capable of considering the idea of a person who is of a different species.

The grade 4's also learned about orcas in captivity, including Kiska, an orca who has been living without the companionship of another whale since 2011 at Marineland in Niagra Falls.  Learn more about Kiska and Marineland through this series of  Toronto Star articles. 

Photograph of Kiska by JoAnne McArthur We Animals