Article Category: Book Review

Book Review:  Lynda V. Mapes’ Orca: Shared Waters, Shared Home

Book Review: Lynda V. Mapes’ Orca: Shared Waters, Shared Home

In the beginning, there was a baby that lived just half an hour, and a grieving mother named Tahlequah who carried her for 17 days and over 1,000 miles through the Salish Sea, an inland marine ecosystem on the northeast edge of the Pacific Ocean. The poignant 2018 journey of Tahlequah, a healthy young female orca, and her dead calf, as told by Seattle Times writer Lynda V. Mapes, attracted worldwide attention, bringing many to tears. “I am convinced she never actually gave up on the calf,” wrote Mapes. “It was badly decomposed by the seventeenth day, and I think it finally just fell apart.” And so began Mapes’ further search into the lives of the southern resident orcas and the perils they have faced—from being the object of target practice to being sold for waterfront aquarium entert...