Air Date: Week of April 4, 2025

Orcas have been observed wearing dead salmon on their heads, and researchers posit that behavior may be linked to an abundant salmon season. Pictured above an orca playing in South Puget Sound, Washington. (Photo: Courtesy of Ocean Wise, MML-18)

Orcas in the Pacific Northwest have again been observed carrying dead salmon on their heads. Living on Earth’s Kayla Bradley explains what scientists think this unique behavior may indicate about orcas’ diet, health, and culture.

Transcript

DOERING: It’s Living on Earth, I’m Jenni Doering.

CURWOOD: And I’m Steve Curwood.

In just a moment ‘tis the season for poetry but first this note on emerging science from Kayla Bradley.

[SCIENCE NOTE THEME]

BRADLEY: Trends of the 1980s have made a major comeback in the U.S., from scrunchies to the Tom Selleck mustache. But humans may not be the only creatures who are feeling nostalgic for the 80s. Orca’s have also returned to a fashionable fad of their own- wearing salmon as hats.

In the Puget Sound in 1987, researchers first observed this fishy fashion statement spreading through all pods of the southern resident orca clan. But as quickly as the trend caught on, it faded away. By 1988, orcas seemed to abandon their salmon caps, with no sightings for nearly forty years. That was, until October 2024, when photographer Jim Pasola captured a 32 year old male orca named Blackberry adorned with a glistening salmon hat. Though the orca was not alive during the first phase of the fad, researchers suspect he could have learned the behavior from his older pod-mates… kind of like when my mom gave me her old bell-bottom jeans.

It may sound unconventional to carry your food on your head, but researchers have proposed the trend ties to the abnormally abundant chum salmon season in 2024. Orcas are incredibly intelligent and social, and have been observed to express themselves and their emotions through spy hopping to tail slaps. Perhaps orcas are now taking advantage of their food surplus by playing dress up with their dinner!

Orcas wearing salmon hats? ???? Sounds like the setup to a joke, right? But it’s real. In the 1980s, killer whales in the Pacific Northwest started balancing dead salmon on their heads. And now, nearly forty years later, they’re doing it again. A thread. ???? pic.twitter.com/mTuCbJ2EoU

— Sea Whispers (@SeaWhispers__) December 5, 2024

These hats are a breath of fresh air for the southern resident orcas of Puget Sound, who have been endangered for several decades, with only around 70 whales today across the clan. No one knows how long this fashion trend will last this time around or if it’s spread beyond Blackberry’s photoshoot. Will it be as persistent as the fanny pack, or will it get left behind with leg warmers? Either way, its a good reminder that we are more alike other animals than we think- even those who are forty times our size, sixty feet deep in our oceans.

For Living on Earth, I’m Kayla Bradley.

 

Links

Scientific American | “For Orcas, Dead Salmon Hats Are Back in Fashion after 37 Years”

National Geographic | “Why These Orcas Are Wearing Salmon as Hats (Again)”