SUPERPOD

An ocean policy expert for the Seattle Aquarium introduces orcas and the people who study and protect them.

Focusing on an orca population of three pods collectively dubbed the Southern Residents, Nickum highlights their much-studied family behaviors and relations—adding a large family tree to the backmatter and noting, for instance, how younglings abandoned by one pod will often be adopted by another, how widely ranging groups enjoy occasional “superpod” reunions, and, poignantly, chronicling a mother’s refusal to stop trying to care for a newly born calf for weeks after its death. Kim Perez Valice’s The Orca Scientists (2018) profiles the same group of orcas and has better photographs (taken by Andy Comins), but along with lively personal reactions to watching orcas from shore and riding out with researchers who employ drones, hydrophones, and even dogs trained to sniff out orca poop, Nickum interviews experts, among them members of the Lummi Nation, and adds observations about “transient” orcas from other lineages who exhibit differences, such as preying on seals rather than salmon. She also makes a strong plea for readers “to join the human superpod” working to preserve and support these social sea mammals against multiple threats ranging from capture for sale to marine parks to noise pollution and loss of salmon spawning grounds.

Gives human superpods fresh impetus to learn more about these appealing apex predators.