Video: How can animals like orcas that breathe voluntarily sleep? It's a team thing

We know that killer whales are unusually social animals. Even the way that orcas sleep is social, something shared. It’s something beautiful to behold.

I was still sipping my morning coffee one of the …

For the Lummi people, returning Miami's captive orca to the Salish Sea is about saving family

Second of two parts:

In many regards, the conditions of Sk’aliCh’elh-tenaut’s confinement in a concrete pool have been something of a perverse joke, down to her stage name of “Lolita.”

At the time of …

Sk’aliCh’elh-tenaut, the last surviving captive Southern Resident orca, has a shot at returning home

First of two parts:

Her Lummi name is Sk’aliCh’elh-tenaut (pronounced SKA-li CHUKH-teNOT). It references the cove on Whidbey Island where she was captured as a calf in August 1970. She has other …

Earth Matters: Manchin helped kill reform of 1872 mining law that harms people and costs billions

Manchin wreckEd latest move to reform 150-YEAR-OLD MINING LAW 

Sen. Joe Manchin III has got a lot of reasons for that smile.

In the last year of his first term as president, Ulysses S. Grant signed …

Watch: Southern Resident orcas make up for lost time with September visit to the Salish Sea

FRIDAY HARBOR, Washington—The summer of 2021 continued a trend of decreasing presence by Southern Resident orcas in the Salish Sea, one that began in 2016 and has seemingly deepened every year since. …

Listen: Sperm whales’ echolocation sounds are much more than just underwater clicks

I was fortunate enough to get to see a small pod of sperm whales off the southern coast of New Zealand in 2018 while out with a whale-watching tour, and even more fortunate to obtain a recording of …

Another sad marker of the Southern Residents’ decline: Beloved orca K21 Cappuccino dies at 35

FRIDAY HARBOR, Washington—K21 Cappuccino was a gregarious, curious, and kindly orca. He liked to engage in play behaviors—breaching, spyhopping, slapping his pectoral fins. And he was generally quite …

As ‘Ammon’s Army’ assembles at site of Oregon water dispute, local farmers grow concerned

Residents of south central Oregon are apparently feeling a bit of déjà vu all over again as the specter of another Ammon Bundy-led armed takeover of a federal facility looms over the town of Klamath …