Environment: Orca calves named in contest

What’s in a name?

For Mark Goodman, it’s 12 months as an adoptive parent of a killer-whale calf named Aurora, compliments of the Whale Museum in Friday Harbor.

Goodman, of Bellingham, and five museum members became adoptive parents as the result of a three-week contest to “name” four calves born to the Southern Resident orcas last year. Goodman and his counterparts nominated the names that received the most votes in the competition and each was awarded a free, one-year sponsorships as part of the museum’s Orca Adoption program.

The newcomers and names are: Aurora (L-101), Cookie (J-38); Sonata (K-35), and Indigo (L-100). The Center for Whale Research named a fifth calf, Mako, after one of its four-legged mascots, a golden Retriever, Australian Shepherd and Newfoundland mix, that recently died.

Popular names are bestowed on Southern Resident calves as part of the adoption program. The names are given to calves after they survive their first year, and are in addition to the scientific moniker which the center uses to identify individuals by pod and birth order.

The Southern Residents consist of three pods, J, K and L — a total of 84 killer whales. Mortality rates of killer whale calves in the wild is 50 percent.

Museum members, who span the globe, submitted choices for names; 16 nominees were selected for the contest. The contest began in May and visitors voted for their favorite names. The museum tallied hundreds of votes to determine the most popular names, said Eliza Buck, manager of the adoption program.

"We’re really pleased to give members and visitors of The Whale Museum an opportunity to help us give popular names to the calves," Buck said. "And now that these calves have been named, they are included in our list of orcas to be adopted through the Orca Adoption Program."

As adoptive parents, Goodman and the others receive educational pamphlets about killer whales, genealogical charts of “their” calf’s family, and periodic updates about the health and progress of the calves and of the Southern Resident orcas in general. The Southern Residents were recently declared “endangered” by Washington state.

Buck noted that four of the six winners “surprisingly” nominated the same name for two of the calves. Mindy Comeau and Lisa Border nominated the name Cookie for J-38. Timothy Bean and Lisa Wisner nominated Sonata for K-35. Allysia Syvertsen nominated Indigo for L-100.

Cookie is the offspring of Oreo (J-22), Sonata is the calf of Opus (K-16), Indigo is the calf of Ino (L-54), and Aurora’s mother is Splash (L-67, also the mother of Luna).

The museum’s Orca Adoption Program, now in its 20th year, educates the public about whales and helps support its research projects and educational programs. Adopting an orca costs $35 per year.

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