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Discussion thread: KILLER WHALES episode is published! (Patreon)

Published:
2026-10-14 20:06:16
Imported:
2026-10

Content

This episode is up and published and ready to hear wherever you get podcasts!

Punted seals. Sunken yachts. Beach ambushes. And salmon hats? What's even happening with orcas? Are they even whales?!

Spooktober continues, with these aquatic killers.

Are they sadists, or just hungry hungry hippos turned marine mammals? The Natural History Museum of LA County's marine mammal expert Dr. Jorge Vélez-Juarbe joins the show to chat about peachy babies, how their language is like a trucker radio, tiny whiskers, the formal wear, what's with the nubbin teeth, if you should go whale watching, pod sizes, Indigenous folklore, captivity struggles, whales that meow, fatty melons and so much more.

I’m off to have a little time looking at leaves but I’ll be working on some Spooktobery topics (brooms and yes, Mothman folklore.)

Let’s discuss orcas below! Have you ever seen one in the wild?

Shivering me timbers.

Podfather Ward

Ps: I’m told I mispronounced one whale’s name in the J-pod. It’s Alk-eye and not Alk-key. Apologies!

Files

Orcinology (KILLER WHALES) with Dr. Jorge Vélez-Juarbe - alie ward

Punted seals. Sunken yachts. Beach ambushes. And salmon hats? What's even happening with killer whales? Are they sadists, or just hungry hungry hippos turned marine mammals? The Natural History Museum of LA County's marine mammal expert Dr. Jorge Vélez-Juarbe joins the show to chat about p

Comments

Shay-Nuh

What is the strongest evidence we have that Orcas have cultural traditions and not just learned behaviours?

T Noz

OMG! KILLER WHALES! You're going to need a bigger server!

msmcecelia

We’re so lucky here in the Pacific Northwest because we see passing Orca travelling through the Salish Sea. What a thrill as they travel by the islands and up the west coast. Mother orcas have been seen carrying their dead babies on their heads quite a while for up to 2 weeks.

Peregrine (edited)

Comment edits

2026-10-16 19:00 Had such a good time listening and learned so much!! I love the blowhole lips and all the social social behaviour!! I’ve been wanting to learn more about whales recently so this was great timing :) Thank you! 🐋🐌🍁🎃🦇🍄‍🟫xoxo Hope you have a lovely trip Alie!
2026-10-14 21:11 Had such a good time listening and learned so much!! I love the blowhole lips and all the social behaviour!! I’ve been wanting to learn more about whales recently so this was great timing :) Thank you! 🐋🐌🍁🎃🦇🍄‍🟫xoxo Hope you have a lovely trip Alie!

Had such a good time listening and learned so much!! I love the blowhole lips and all the social behaviour!! I’ve been wanting to learn more about whales recently so this was great timing :) Thank you! 🐋🐌🍁🎃🦇🍄‍🟫xoxo Hope you have a lovely trip Alie!

Peregrine

ps. I read a cool paper recently about a whale fall- the stages of decomposition and animals that eat and live around it! In case you’re interested :) “Seven-year enrichment: macrofaunal succession in deep-sea sediments around a 30 tonne whale fall in the Northeast Pacific” by Smith et al. It would be so cool to have a whole episode about whale falls! (Though I’m sure it would be hard to find an expert)

Tiffany

Last week, I was on a whale watching trip in the Gulf of Maine. We saw a Humpback mother & calf. The calf was very interested in our boat, so the the mother kept diving for food and then checking on the calf, while it swam around and around for almost 30 minutes. It was totally calf-baby-sitting, so magical.

Dylan V

One of my favorite facts from AP Bio (school, not the show) was that whales have vestigial pelvis (how do you pluralize pelvis?)

Steven Lee

The way I started imitating the Orca during the Free Willy trailer only for Alie to read out that top comment, which is me a 38yo man acting out the same noise I made to piss my parents off as a kid 😂💀

Kelso

Alie, I’m ashamed that this is my first comment, but I have been a devoted and enthusiastic listener since I first discovered Ologies in 2020. You are the drum major of the most fascinating parade of smart people, marching us all straight down rabbit holes we never want to come out of. You are truly a national treasure. In this episode you mention something I empathized with so much that I had to break my six year silence: loathing Google AI overview! I fixed mine earlier this year and I believe I found the source I used, and will link it at the end of this comment. Essentially it will default your searches to the “Web” filter on Google, which will get rid of the AI overview and should look and act like the OG Google we all knew and loved. I hope it works for you. Thanks again for all of your hard work on this podcast, it is truly the highlight of my week. Warmly, Your daughter https://tenbluelinks.org/

Nadia

YESSS I've been WAITING for this episode ahhh I'm so excited!!

Brain 🧠 Shenanigans

Learning about whale milk is a fairly recent event in my life timeline, AND I STILL CAN’T GET OVER IT. Just. Squirting milk into water. Welp there you go baby whale! 40% fat. 40%! Anyone who has put bottles of pumped breast milk in the fridge knows what that separation looks like. FORTY PER CENT! Ugh. My brain is broken. I honestly don’t think they teach us how baby anything’s are fed in school. I certainly don’t recall! If it wasn’t for Sir David and Dad Ward, the number of fun facts I know about how literally anything in the world works would be negligible at best.

Kait

Gonna put on my orca hat with “in my apex predator era” stitched on while I listen 😌🫍 (shoutout to baddies & ballenas for A+ merch)

Mervyn Barenie

You mentioned this wasn't a podcast about Blue Whales. I don't recall one in the past, but if you want one, Dr. Asha De Vos is pretty great.

Jane Nelson

I am PUMPED to listen to this episode. I go whale watching at least twice every summer and whenever I can in the winter. Marine mammals are my jam. Also I have been bugging all my friends to come with me to the orca exhibit at the nhmla, and I will go alone if no one agrees to come with my embarrassingly enthusiastic butt soon.

Sethlkap

Surprised you didn't ask why they gave Keiko a Japanese female name?

Christian Swenson

For something very curious, you should check out “Orcas greatest hits“ Jim Nollman recently released on Smithsonian Folkways. A musician playing music and Orcas responding…!

Dave Brewer

Great episode! A note on pronunciation: Whale J36 name doesn’t rhyme with Alie 😉. The second syllable rhymes with hi. The word is from Lushootseed, and means roughly eventually or by and by. The Denny party, the Europeans who first settled Seattle, named their landing spot New York Alki, as in one day we’ll be New York. It didn’t quite happen but we do have a Statue of Liberty. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statue_of_Liberty_(Seattle)

Dave Brewer

Tangentially, I won fifty bucks at a work trivia contest for knowing that fact, which was one of a couple things I’d retained from 9th grade Washington state history about 35 years earlier.

Dave Brewer

Just like you pluralize Elvis.

Marc Rubin

Loved hearing about the orca soaking splash-zone gawkers with ice-cold, poop-infested water! Fight the power! Classic ologies episode! Hits all the right notes: great questions, well timed puns, eloquent ologist, and crazy facts that make you sit in awe of life on earth. Also, bump for veterinary gerontology- this month's senior spotlight is Austin.. https://www.instagram.com/p/DeaXSY6iayk/?img_index=2&xtok=MWVyN3hnaGU5bmN4dA==

Mimi

iirc his original name was ”kago” which didn’t work when he was brought to mexico. keiko may just have been chosen since it sounded similar.

Alexandria Pinney

Just in time for Orca Recovery Day!! A tradition of community stewardship in the Salish Sea since the tragedy with Tahlequah’s calf in 2018. https://betterground.org/ord/ I work for a salmon recovery nonprofit (sound salmon solutions) and we host volunteer or outreach events on this day every year. If anyone reading this lives in or near the watersheds we serve (snohomish & stillaguamish), I’d encourage them to check out our website for more public events! Trust me, they are not only fun but so incredibly rewarding. https://www.soundsalmonsolutions.org

Alexandria Pinney

I need to try this 🤯 AI overview drives me nuts

Kelso

Same!!! I hope it works for you 🫶🏻

Shannon McDermott

I have been listening to Ologies since January 2023, starting at that current one, and then realizing how great it was and going back to the beginning and listening to *all* of them. I just finished orcinology and now it will be hard to wait a week in between new ones. Thank you, Alie, for making my commute (and the occasional road trip) so enjoyable over the past three (almost four) years. I'd leave a review, but apparently Spotify does not do that. And Apple does not let you unless you have an iPhone, which I don't. An apple ID on a browser is not enough. And perhaps there are other places where one might create yet another login and receive even more unwanted emails but as much as I love Ologies, I figured i would just renew my membership here and that might be better than a review anyway. :)

Susan G

I was just in Wellington in Aotearoa (New Zealand) and they have orcas down there in the bay sometimes but alas my wish to see one remains unfulfulled. But I love orcas so much! My friend who used to live in Seattle spent a lot of time doing volunteer work for the orcas there.