Impressive Orca Exhibit at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science

On the 18th, with my daughter Corey and her girlfriend Samantha as company and support staff, I visited the Orca exhibit currently showing at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.  I love orcas, and it was sort of Orca Week, with my friend Dr. Mithriel MacKay appearing with humpbacks and orcas on the new Nat Geo series OceanXplorer.  (Another post on that will follow).'

Orcas: Our Shared Future was created by the Royal British Columbia Museum in Victoria, Canada and MuseumsPartner in Austria. It fills a huge exhibit space, nicely set off with curtain screens to create an immersive space divided into several large rooms. The initial attention-grabbers are three Southern Resident Killer Whales (J pod, to be exact), sculpted life size.  There's an outstanding section on the science of orcas: evolution, ecotypes, the growth of our knowledge, instruments created to study them, and so much more. The ecotypes and populations are presented on screens in illustrations and text: the recent paper naming a second species is not mentioned, but otherwise it's very up-to-date. There's an interactive light-table exhibit (I'm not sure if that's the right term) where visitors can move through views of the orca's body systems and anatomy. There's even a display of models of inner-ear bones of whales and their ancestors, although it needed more labeling about how important these are to scientists.  Static screens and video also depict the complex, long-lasting family bonds of orcas. 

While the range of the species (if it is one species) is vast, orcas are especially deeply entwined with the Indigenous cultures of Northwestern North America. That link is explored in carvings, objects like a canoe-sized cedar gift-serving dish for a potlatch ceremony, dance, paintings, and oral history. There are dozens of such objects all tolled in this room and throughout the exhibit.

The exhibit lays out how humans have viewed and learned about orcas through the ages.

The recent history of orcas and humans, again focused on North America, fills two rooms, one on captivity and one mainly on conservation. We "met" the celebrity orcas like Namu, Shamu (a name applied to many captive orcas), and Keiko. I explained how I'd seen Lolita (Tokitae) in the Miami Seaquarium when I was a kid in the 1970s, when I didn't realize how small and miserable her tank must be to her and tankmate Hugo.  I'd been startled to learn some 30 years later she was still there.  I wonder if she was sane when she died in 2023: Hugo had basically killed himself in 1980. 

Corey Bille and Samantha Weiss explore marine hotspots.

Tilikum and Blackfish are covered, as is the case of Morgan, rescued for rehab and supposed release but kept as a new bloodline for the captive market. Scientist Lori Marino, who I know slightly, is featured in a video arguing for Morgan's personhood, a complex matter on which not much has been decided. Objects like marine debris, maps, and a game table explore the threats to orcas and marine life in general. There's another interactive spot where visitors can see how thew sounds of different ships affect the whales' world. That's an item of special interest to me: I made a presentation on satellite tracking to the  Conference on Small Satellites in 2018 where we used new software to display sound clouds around vessels.  There's a poll where visitors can express ideas on matters like the most important steps to take to safeguard the species.

It's a memorable exhibit. The level of the text and other information is nicely chosen for a broad audience without talking down to anyone. The detail is thorough but won't overwhelm any but the youngest schoolchildren. Everyone will leave with newly-acquired knowledge, and very few will leave unchanged.

Matt Bille is a writer, historian, and naturalist living in Colorado Springs. He can be reached at mattsciwriter@protonmail.com. Website: www.mattbilleauthor.com.

Read Matt's Latest book, Of Books and Beasts: A Cryptozoologist's Library. This unique reference offers a friendly skeptic's 400 reviews of books on cryptozoology, zoology, related sciences, and cryptozoological fiction.