A companion to my previous article: The Forgotten 4%. In this writing, I will talk about half of the forgotten ones. Unlike the previous article where I explained about the history, this one will focus more on my experience and journey of encountering the whales.
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“Oh! What a poor seal!” my friend said as the orcas crashed the melting iceberg. In the middle of it was a seal trying to survive.
I made my friends watch an entire episode of the Our Oceans documentary on Netflix. Obviously not everyone was interested, but what caught their attention was the well-known narrator, Barack Obama.
In the end, the group of orcas gave up and swam away. Everyone was celebrating the seal’s victory. As they were cheering and clapping their hands, I finally decided to say something, “But the orcas are starving though”.
Everyone turned around and looked at me, but no one said anything. They know how much I love those big mammals. In fact, I was the only one in the room who was rooting for them instead of the seal.
Everyone knows orcas are the killer whales, or at least I thought everyone did. However, few of us know they actually come from the dolphin family, which is why they are highly intelligent.
Over the years, orcas have been captured and held in captivity for entertainment. They received negative perspectives due to being the apex predators, and this viewpoint intensified following the killing cases of their trainers in marine parks during shows or training sessions.
They were confined in small tanks, forced to train and perform in front of hundreds of humans daily, and yet they are to blame. I find this viewpoint ridiculous. Of course they would kill; even naturally, that is how they feed themselves.
Humans have killed and caused massive extinction for years, slaughtering every single species until their bloodline stopped. Ironically, no one calls themselves “the killer mammal”.
We are so good at naming things, other things of course. Definitely not ourselves.
Several months after watching orcas on a flat screen in my cramped studio, I somehow found myself floating in the middle of the Arctic ocean.
On December 16th, 2025, I visited a city in far northern Norway. Skjervøy, located a few hours away from Tromsø. My friends and I wrapped ourselves in several layers of clothing and huge boots. I hugged their arms, ambling carefully like a penguin on the slippery ice. Well, everyone looked like a penguin in my eyes.
We then hopped into the boat. The guide told us everything we needed to know like basic rules and precautions. She said we were very fortunate to have unusually warm weather, which is peculiar for them.
As the boat drove farther from land, the ocean breeze started to hit our faces. The mixture of its coldness with the warmth of the sun felt comfortable on my skin, as if I was meant to be there all along. I had the chance to talk with Kai, a Chinese girl studying in the UK. She was very nice, but sadly we didn’t exchange any contacts.
Along the journey, there were massive white mountains around. I had to squint my eyes to observe the majestic views due to the strong blustering wind. The ocean felt like a bumpy road that slowly lulled me to sleep, but I held back the urge. I definitely did not pay a month’s rent just to sleep.
Finally, after around 10 to 15 minutes on the boat, we saw a pod of orcas swimming nearby. The tour guide slowed down the engine and whistled to catch their attention. She explained a few things about their pods, their diets, their migration, and their physical activities. Orcas are the most widely distributed cetaceans. They often swim and hunt in pods, just like wolf packs. In wintertime, they would migrate from the North Atlantic to the coast of northern Norway to feed on spawning herring. This could reach between 600 km and 1,500 km.
Seeing the killer whales roaming freely in the vast ocean with their pods reminded me of the orcas I saw in Marineland (Antibes). I was naive and excited to see them without actually learning about them first. Although Marineland is finally closed due to the ban of cetacean entertainment in France, the journey is not near the end at all. Globally, there are still thousands of orcas and other cetaceans living in small tanks, suffering a never-ending torture.
As I finally observed the dolphin species up close, I was still not satisfied. Greed is always human nature, after all, and I craved to see humpback whales. The guide drove the boat farther and farther, hoping to see at least one of them.
After a while of searching, the ocean eventually shared its secret with us. I admit I felt like the most fortunate human on earth that day; a humpback whale appeared right beside our boat and swam close for a few minutes. It positively indicated that the engine wasn’t bothering them. They were comfortable swimming near us!
The guide explained to us how the humpback whales also travelled from the Caribbean coast to the Arctic coast, migrating based on their mating and feeding seasons. For some reason they have been my favourite whale ever since I was 11, but with no memory to recall why.
Out of the blue, a fin whale also appeared behind our boat, but it only surfaced once. No one had the chance to record the brief moment. Looking at their courage to swim up close, I was thinking how brave they are to show themselves. Humans have been hunting whales forever, for entertainment, oils, perfumes, and other human ‘necessities’.
For decades, whale hunting caused their mass population to shrink and dwindle; endangering and destroying the ecosystem. Considering our history, we have given them every reason to disappear from our sight, but they don’t. The scene in front of me felt satisfying, but also undeserved; I was looking at an action of trust given from a species that we have betrayed for centuries.
Why would you feel guilty for the sins you don’t commit? Maybe I am guilty for the little things I don’t know. For every litter I saw but didn’t pick up, that probably ended up somewhere in the ocean they are living in.
The next day we directly flew to the next city. I hadn’t (and still haven’t) moved on from everything I saw on that day. I mean, who would?
As I travelled to Oslo, leaving Tromsø and all the beautiful creatures behind, I received a text from my brother:
“What a waste going to Norway but not seeing any aurora”
“What a waste living here for 5 years but not seeing any whales? Aurora is just another light display anyways, what’s the difference with rainbows?”
“And whales are just another mammal anyways, what’s the difference with cats?”
I turned off my phone.
I am not a fan of colorful night skies, but I understand the different values and perspectives of traveling. Some people prefer historical buildings, some prefer preserved nature, some love following the trends, and some prefer whale watching, or maybe that’s just me?
In many years to come, it is uncertain if our future generations can still go whale watching like I did. It all depends on what humans, us, will do. It all depends on how many whales are still alive. Some species might be endangered, some populations might grow, and some might be extinct.
Extinct. My least favourite word in all dictionaries.
It seems illogical to think that some species that have lived for more than millions of years could go extinct.
Oh, but who is to blame?