So hot right now: WA orcas are wearing dead salmon on their heads in latest fashion fad
Washington orcas have reportedly revived a macabre fashion trend: dead-salmon hats.
West Coast killer whales were last spotted sporting expired salmon in the 1980s, according to Live Science. After a nearly 40-year hiatus, whale watchers and scientists witnessed the resurrected fad last month off Point No Point in Kitsap County and in South Puget Sound.
Earlier this year, the conservation charity ORCA wrote about the first time this fashion craze cropped up. The trend can be traced to one salmon-wearing orca circa the summer of 1987. Before long, three pods — including her own — had followed suit.
No word yet on whether salmon-hat mania will catch on this go-round, Live Science notes.
Ever neglect a passé pair of boots, only to happily rediscover them in the closet years later? The same might be more or less true for these Pacific Northwest whales.
“It does seem possible that some individuals that experienced [the behavior] the first time around may have started it again,” Andrew Foote, a University of Oslo evolutionary ecologist, told New Scientist.
Whatever the case, the fad may not stick around for long. After debuting the year prior, salmon hats had reportedly gotten stale by summer 1988.
It’s unknown why orcas decided to don the fish in the first place.
One theory is that there’s a lot of food available thanks to the prevalence of chum salmon in the South Sound, according to Live Science. It’s possible that satiated whales are saving excess food for later.
Mammal-eating orcas have been known to tuck food under their pectoral fin, clasping it close to their body, University of Washington orca researcher Deborah Giles told New Scientist. Salmon might be too small for killer whales to hold snugly, so the bold headgear solves the problem.
New technology could assist researchers in chronicling the trend.
Camera drones can potentially document orcas in their salmon hats, Live Science reports. That way, scientists might potentially confirm whether the whales ultimately eat their hats — or ditch them altogether.
