An extended clan of Orcinus orca, or orcas, socialize and forage in the inland waters of Washington State and British Columbia. Both male and female offspring remain with their mothers their entire lives. Cultural traditions such as lifetime family bonding allow distinct vocal repertoires and complex social systems to develop within each pod and community, unlike any other mammal. Their dialects are similar to human language groups, and assure them a place in their society. Known as the Southern Resident Orca community, or the Salish Sea Orcas, they move gracefully downstream from an increasingly urban landscape.

But all is not well. Orcas need clean, uncontaminated water and plentiful fish. Salmon, the Salish Sea orcas' main food source, are in historic decline throughout the region. Habitat degradation, industrial poisons such as PCBs, and other impacts of human activities are taking their toll on the orcas we have come to know and love. We are all intricately connected, from tiny plankton to forage fish, salmon, orcas, tall firs and cedars, mountains, rivers and the ocean. It is time to reflect, to reconnect, and to respond as better caretakers of our planet.

They are victims of justified caution, momentarily terrified of the unknown flashes of lightning and foreign snow coating their steaming skin, only to be bolstered by snatches of their own scents upon the circling wind. Paused for precious moments of rest in the whirling madness of an alien landscape, she lifts her muzzle and respires desperately, searching for some hidden meaning in the taste of the sleet - and she can feel it caressing her lungs, frozen and bitter witht he tangy mist of an endless storm. She turns to him, and their muzzles meet, reassuringly warm and alive: she knows not life from death in this endless darkness, imbibing liquid air that feels molten in her throat and feeling the blaze of ice shards striking her flesh. She is honestly, truthfully terrified - yet she dare not show it lest the wind scent her fear and renew the rage of the storm, lest her kin sense it and become disconsolate himself. She uselessly closes her eyes, gravely suppressing her shaking and focuses on the picture of the wind: the shape of the air before her face and the song of its passage, the building picture of reassurance taking shape before eyes that remain useless in the pitch of the night. Listening to songs of his own a vivid tapestry takes shape on the untextured grey of her inner sight – illusions and ephemeral phantoms substantiating and evolving, patterns of ice and wilderness forming meaningful symmetry; his voice a tether to a reality she had nearly forgotten. Her heart slows and the darkness does not seem so abyssal as he shapes it, moulds the penumbras into worlds of familiarity. Here, the crystalline surface of a frozen waterway, the stretch of trail roughly before them, the press of the snow-laden trees that surround and confide in them with whispery zephyrs, and yes indeed, the crisp tang of salt upon the snowflakes that land sharply on her briefly exposed tongue, of oceans tossing and curving in the tempest with the careless flick of her wild tail. Her heart aches for it, and had she tears left to cry she would have shed many in that moment for the blessed taste of the sea – a sight, so wondrous, that she would never again see. Without words she feels the cadence of abstruse stars upon her burning flesh and blazing in her pale eyes; she closes them, and sees him, shining with the light of countless infinities.

“Don’t leave me,” she says, helplessly, her voice a cacophony of desolation. “Without you, this world is meaningless,” she gasps simply, her low voice worried, “without you, I cannot see.” But he is already gone, his scent vanished from the wind, and she cannot follow; the air already cold and his voice echoing in erratic orbits about her.