A 1980s fashion revival or a back-pocket-snack – Salmon hats return

Many of us living through the 1980s, will recall some fashion trends we’d rather forget – deely-boppers, Ra-Ra skirts, Pixie Boots all had their moment but hopefully never again. Though we thought that about the mullet. So it was a little surprising to see the recent return of a marine mammal trend last seen circa 1987.

In late October near Point No Point, just off the northern tip of Washington’s Kitsap Peninsula on Puget Sound, a 32-year old southern resident killer whale (J27, though he is also called Blackberry) was observed reviving a bizarre trend that it was thought had passed away as a fashion fad in the late 1980s – Blackberry was wearing a “salmon hat” – or at the very least, swimming while balancing a large salmon on his head.

To look at the origins of this we have to go back 40 years, when a female orca was observed to be wearing a salmon hat for nearly the duration of that year. Within a few weeks, two other orca pods began following the trend.

However it seems that in fact, the so-called trend never quite died out at all. Speaking to NBC, Deborah Giles, the Director of Wild Orca, which monitors the whales in the area said that she had seen the behaviour “four or five times” since 2005.

There is a lot of speculation as to what the behaviour indicates, if anything. One is that with a relative seasonal glut of chum salmon, the orca’s are simply hanging on to a handy snack that it will eat later without having to go through the faff of catching it first.

Much like Grizzly bears will gorge themselves during the salmon run and just eat the most nutritious parts while leaving the rest, Giles said that the behaviour was “…indicative of a well-fed whale. If they’re starving, which they often are, they’re just going to eat it…when there’s more food, they have an opportunity to socialise more or forgo a meal. They have an opportunity to interact with things in their environment.”

Giles said that the November sighting was the second recent instance of the behaviour.

But Howard Garrett, president of the Orca Network, said he’s not convinced there is evidence of a trend. “When the Southern Resident orcas visit the inland waters of Puget Sound, there is no shortage of eyes on the water and cameras capturing their visit.”

“If the salmon ‘wearing’ behaviour exhibited by the whale known to local whale enthusiasts as J27 Blackberry was, in fact, a revival of the old trend, there would be ample documentation of that.”

So not much in the way of consensus there. There's also a theory that the whales are simply having fun - baleen whales such as grays and humpbacks often sport seaweed hats, something known as “kelping,” where they swim through seaweed, sometimes deliberately leaving it on their heads.

ORCA’s Director of Programmes, Lucy Babey, was invited to speak about the story on BBC Radio 4’s PM programme. One listener called in to ask how the salmon didn’t keep slipping off the whale’s head, and so the BBC once again asked Lucy for an answer!

Main photo credit: Brittany Visona