Podcast appearances and mentions of ken balcomb

Chinese biophysicist He Jiankui caused international outrage when in 2018 when he used the gene-editing tool known as CRISPR Cas-9 to edit the genomes of two human embryos. That experiment, described by the Chinese Academy of Science and Technology described as ‘abominable', resulted in the birth of twin girls. The experiment also landed Dr He in prison for three years. Now, out of prison and working for a company in Beijing that proclaims to offer “affordable gene therapy” – He Jiankui has been speaking in public. At an open bioethics event at the University of Kent last weekend, organisers invited the scientist to present his research and to face questions about his past experiments and his future plans. We spoke to event organiser Dr Joy Zhang about the reaction to event and to Professor Robin Lovell-Badge at the Crick Institute about the implications of CRISPR-CAS9 technology. A Hippo butchery site reveals that distant human ancestors have been using stone tools far longer than researchers previously thought. This archaeological site in Kenya revealed that ancient hominins Paranthropus have probably been using stone tools to prepare food and weapons since 2.9 million years ago. Professor Tom Plummer at Queens College, City University of New York take us through the discovery and what it reveals about hominin evolution. A study released this week reveals just how much of a burden sons are on killer whale mothers. Michael Wiess, research director at the centre for whale research, fills us in on their findings which are a product of nearly 40 years studying the southern resident Orca population. This long-term Whale census project began in the 70s, championed by researcher Ken Balcomb, who was passionate about understanding and protecting killer whales and who sadly passed away late last year. We hear from Ken and his team out on the water studying the southern residents, more of which can be found in BBC Radio 4 documentary The Whale Menopause. Presenter: Victoria Gill Producer: Emily Bird BBC Inside Science is made in collaboration with the Open University

Ken Balcomb, founder of the Center for Whale Research in Friday Harbor, was 82.

The 2013 documentary Blackfish exposes the distress of killer whales kept in captivity and contrasts their lives with those of the wild orcas we see here in the Pacific Northwest. Joining us this week to talk about his involvement in the film is Dr Jeff Ventre, one of the former SeaWorld trainers featured Blackfish.  We discuss the origins of Jeff's involvement that can be traced back almost 15 years prior to the release of Blackfish, to 1995 while he was a senior trainer at SeaWorld, when he visited the Center for Whale Research on San Juan Island. There he began his friendships with Astrid van Ginneken, Dave Ellifrit and Ken Balcomb learning about the lives of wild killer whales versus captive orcas. After trainer Dawn Brancheau was killed by captive orca Tilikum in 2010, Jeff was interviewed by CNN and others, further drawing him into opportunities to expose the dangers of orca captivity. In our conversation, Jeff mentions the Outside Magazine feature article “The Killer in the Pool,” by Tim Zimmermann. Filmmaker Gabriela Coperthwaite read the article, which drew her into the story, and inspired her 2013 documentary. This also inspired “Superpod” gatherings of activists, authors, filmmakers and others on San Juan Island starting in 2011, where many of the interviews in the film were conducted. Jeff speaks about the release of the film and how they thought getting into the Sundance Film Festival would be the pinnacle, not knowing the film was about to be purchased by CNN and Magnolia. Jeff discusses what it was like to participate in the global release of the film and how it became a rallying cry for the animal justice movement and a model for other documentaries. Jeff also speaks with us about his most memorable experiences seeing iconic Southern Resident killer whales J1, “Ruffles,” and J2, “Granny.” These experiences radically altered his perspective and forever changed him. He took these experiences with him all the way forward to his participation in the film Blackfish. In the second half of this episode, captains, professional guides and podcast co-hosts Jeff and Sara discuss the latest whale sightings around the San Juan Islands from running tours with Maya's Legacy Whale Watching. We describe the scene with T65A3 and T49A2, recently referred to as “The Butcher Boys,” hunting in Active Pass amid ferry traffic. We also talk about a very rare visit from Bigg's killer whale T72, a first-time sighting for us. He has a distinctive curl at the top of his dorsal fin and spends most of his time in northern BC and Southeast Alaska. He came down to our area accompanied by the T34s and T37s, familiar whales in this region, who also spend time up in Southeast Alaska. We also discuss recent sightings of Southern Resident killer whales and a new calf in K pod.  If you are enjoying listening to our podcast, please follow/subscribe, leave us feedback/reviews and share with your friends! You can also find us on Instagram, Facebook and Youtube. Please send us feedback or questions at afterthebreachpodcast@gmail.com. For complete show notes, links and photos, please visit our website: https://www.afterthebreachpodcast.com/e/blackfish/   Links mentioned in this episode: Jeff Ventre on Twitter: https://twitter.com/jeffrey_ventre Blackfish Official Website: https://www.blackfishmovie.com/ Watch Blackfish on Amazon Analysis of Captive Orca Kasatka attacking Trainer Ken Peters: https://youtu.be/X03UrpOsvk8 CBS morning show interview with Jeff Ventre, Former SeaWorld trainer: Details of co-worker's death "horrific": https://youtu.be/hveQ3VRIlGQ  "The Killer in the Pool",  by Time Zimmermann, Outside Magazine: https://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/environment/killer-pool/ Dorsal Fin Collapse in Captive Killer Whales Explained: https://youtu.be/awpAiyfTecg Death at Seaworld, by David Kirby: https://www.amazon.com/Death-SeaWorld-Killer-Whales-Captivity/dp/1250031257

For those who can't get enough of "podfather" Ken Balcomb – and those new to his lifetime of dedication to the Southern Resident Orca (SRO) – here's the additional interview we promised. Listen to Ken describe the staggering natural beauty that drew him to North America's Pacific Northwest, his first orca sighting 45 years ago, and what it's been like to encounter and document these amazing yet highly threatened sentient beings. Ken also shares his thoughts on the continuing threats to the SROs existence and why removing dams and restoring river ecosystems are essential to their future, as well as our own. To learn more, listen to our prior podcast, "Podfather: One Man's Journey to Save the Southern Resident Orca" and visit Ken's organization, the https://www.whaleresearch.com/ (Center for Whale Research.) Call to Action: Support the growing movement to breach the four Lower Snake River dams, save the salmon and feed the orca on the https://damsense.org/ (Dam Sense) and https://www.americanrivers.org/ (American Rivers) websites. Intro music: "The Spaces Between" by Scott Buckley. Interstitial music: "Red Giant" by Stellardrone. Photo: Susan Woodward.

This week's episode is from the field! Susan interviews whale researcher Ken Balcomb. The interview takes place at Ken's Big Salmon Ranch property on the beautiful Elwha River, acquired to preserve a key salmon-spawning habitat that is vital to feeding J, K and L pods. Calls to Action: For more stories, photos and videos about the individual whales in the Southern Resident pods, as well as information on how to help them, visit the https://www.whaleresearch.com/ (Center for Whale Research) site. Support growing calls to https://damsense.org/ (breach the Lower Snake River Dams.) Read the Outside article about Ken (that Susan refers to in the episode) here: "https://www.outsideonline.com/2420681/end-watch-southern-resident-orcas (Is It Too Late for the Southern Resident Orcas?)" In North America, you can view wild orca on the West Coast, especially around the San Juan and Gulf Islands, in the summertime. Intro music: "The Spaces Between" by Scott Buckley. Interstitial music: "To the Great Beyond" by Stellardrone. Photo: Susan Woodward. Thanks to http://www.orcasound.net/ (OrcaSound) and Ocean Networks Canada for the audio clips of J, K and L pods and to BBC Sounds for ocean waves audio clips.

For the first episode of this podcast/talkshow I talk with my dad about the experiences he had raising a child obsessed with Orcas, and further the experiences we've been able to share involving this great species. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━ People Mentioned: John Ford https://mmru.ubc.ca/personnel/john-ford/ Cameron Lee-Ming https://www.cameronleeming.com Ingrid Visser https://www.orcaresearch.org/index.php/research/our-team Howard Garrett http://www.orcanetwork.org/contact/contact.html Ken Balcomb https://www.whaleresearch.com/ourpeople ━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Organizations Mentioned: The Whale Museum https://whalemuseum.org/ The Whale Trail https://thewhaletrail.org/ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Socials

Ken Balcomb, founding Director of the Centre For Whale Research, and his team have spotted a new Orca Calf on the Eastern end of the Juan de Fuca. This is the first calf since last year after a mother was seen floating her newborn dead calf for 17 days.  Ken is cautiously optimistic of the calf as he gauges the Orca's chances at about 50% survival due to low salmon populations, increased underwater noise and bioaccumulation of toxins due to plastic ingestion as well as those found in salmon that the animal can find to eat.  Take a listen and share your thoughts in the Facebook Group: http://www.speakupforblue.com/group Want to get started on living for a better Ocean? Sign up for the Grove Collaborative and get a free gift: http://www.speakupforblue.com/goocean.  

Ken Balcomb is THE research expert on Southern Resident Orca Population in the Salish Sea area. Ken has predicted two deaths by summer 2019 based on the state of J17 (female, 42 years-old) and J25 (male, 27 years-old). He says both individuals look skinny compared to recent years and J25 is exhibiting "peanut head", which is a sign of malnutrition as the head is smaller than the rest of the body.  J17 is the grandmother of the calf that was born last summer (2018) and died a half an hour later. It's mother carried her dead calf for 17 days making international news. Ken suggests J17 probably underwent significant stress watching her daughter grieve her newborn loss for so long. Coupled with lack of food (chinook salmon), the grieving could have made survival difficult for J17. The Southern Resident Orca population has dwindled to 74 individuals and may lose two or more this year due to a lack of food. Chinook Salmon populations have also declined due to damns blocking rivers, which serve as reproductive habitats for the salmon populations. Canadian and US governments refuse to make hydro companies remove damns that are not in use anymore to help save the salmon populations within the Salish Sea. Instead, the US government recently approved a bill that will allow the culling of 1000 sea lions as they say the pinnipeds are responsible for the decline in salmon populations in the area. Listen to the episode to get the full details and find out how the lack of food is changing the Orca population's behaviour. Share Your Thoughts On The Movie in the Facebook Group: http://www.speakupforblue.com/group Want to get started on living for a better Ocean? Sign up for the Grove Collaborative and get a free gift: http://www.speakupforblue.com/goocean.

Jeffrey Ventre is a medical doctor in Washington State. Prior to becoming a physician, he worked as a marine mammal trainer at SeaWorld from 1987 to 1995, spending seven years with cetaceans and one year with pinnipeds.In June of 1996 he joined orca scientists Ken Balcomb and Astrid van Ginneken for Orca Survey, an ongoing photo identification study of the Southern Resident population of killer whales in the Pacific Northwest. Seeing killer whales in the wild radically altered his perspective on keeping these animals in captivity and led him to be a co-founder of the advocacy group Voice of the Orcas (VOTO).He has co-authored several science-based works and articles, which can be found at this website. He is featured in the documentary Blackfish and the book Death at SeaWorld. He also helps organize the annual whale watching event and symposium called Superpod6 in the San Juan Islands.We discuss life after Blackfish and his activism in leftist politics.You can learn more about Jeff's work here: https://sites.google.com/site/voiceoftheorcas/about-us/jeffreyventre See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Ken Balcomb has been identifying and studying the Southern Resident killer whales for decades with the Center for Whale Research. After J50's death, he says it's past time that action takes the place of politics. The orcas are down to just 75 with very few reproducing. He hopes he does not see the end of them in his lifetime, but believes it's a real possibility.

War of the Whales: A True Story (starts at 3:35): In the early hours of March 15th, of the year 2000, a Cuvier beaked whale washed ashore a mere 100 feet from Ken Balcomb’s house on the island of Abaco in the Bahamas. It was, for the whale, a fortuitous coincidence: Balcomb was a marine mammal researcher who was uniquely placed to rescue the creature. But that day 17 more whales of various species washed up on nearby islands and some of them weren’t quite so fortunate. The event was the largest mass stranding in recent history but what might have caused it was a total mystery. To Balcomb, it was a mystery that cried out for a solution. So begins the book “War of the Whales: A true story.” It’s a book that has been described by critics as a tense, page turning eco-thriller, even though it is a work of non-fiction. How On Earth's Jane Palmer talks with author Joshua Horwitz about what happened after Ken Balcomb’s discovery, and the attempts to solve the mystery. Hosts: Beth Bartel, Jane Palmer Producer: Beth Bartel Engineer: Maeve Conran Additional Contributions: Beth Bennett Executive Producer: Kendra Krueger

On March 15, 2000, over a dozen whales beached themselves in the Bahamas in one of the largest multi-species strandings in history. Suspicion turned to U.S. Navy sonar, but at first there was no proof. This revelation brings us into the detective story told in War of the Whales: A True Story. Point of Inquiry welcomes the author, Joshua Horowitz.  We discuss the history of the U.S. Navy’s use of high-intensity active sonar; the cover-up of sonar in the Bahamas; and the titanic struggle between the Navy and an unlikely team of conservationists: marine biologist and ex-Navy sonar man Ken Balcomb, and environmental lawyer Joel Reynolds of the Natural Resources Defense Council.   Host, Lindsay Beyerstein and Horowitz also delve into the history of sonar, the militarization of dolphins, and the sordid history of whales in captivity.