Killers In Eden: The True Story Of Killer Whales And Their Remarkable Partnership With The Whalers Of Twofold Bay

by Danielle Clode

For a century, the killer whales of Twofold Bay herded baleen whales towards the harpoons of local whalers, helping them hunt and sharing the rewards. It was a life of industry, adventure and a strange and rare partnership between whale and man.

In Killers in Eden, Danielle Clode explores how this relationship between whaler and killer developed. Using our modern knowledge of killer whales to untangle fact from myth, Danielle uncovers the truly remarkable history of killers in Eden.

Genres: Nonfiction, Natural History, Australia, Environment, Animals, Nature, Science

156 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

About the author

Danielle is the author of several narrative non-fiction books including Voyages to the South Seas, which won the Victorian Premier's Literary Prize for nonfiction in 2007 and The Wasp and the Orchid which was shortlisted for the National Biography Award in 2018. She has also written books on Australian palaeontology, killer whales, bushfires and museums as well as publishing essays and academic papers.
Her latest book, Koala, was published internationally in Australia by Black Inc and in the US/UK by WW Norton. It won a Whitley Award for Popular Ecology.
Danielle grew up on a boat and studied zoology at university, giving her an abiding interest in natural history and the environment, which is apparent in all her writing.

Reviews

[Saturday's Child · Rating 3 out of 5]

A conversation at work one morning led me to locate this book to read, as the story is fascinating. I had no knowledge of whaling operations in the Eden area so of course I had never heard of the story about the killer whales and their interactions with the whalers. I now know more about these historical times and also a little bit more about the amazing killer whales.

[Boy Blue · Rating 3 out of 5]

What's not to love about the story of killer whales working with whalers in Australia to catch whales and then share the spoils? (Disregarding the plight of the whales themselves which at the time were abundant).

I think Douglas Adams may have been slightly off when he said dolphins were the 2nd smartest thing on the planet after mice, and before humans, he definitely should have said killer whales. They are an apex predator but what's fascinating about them is that whatever environment they are in they thrive and learn to hunt in innovative ways. Whether it's tipping, swamping, or cracking ice in the antarctic to wash their prey off, launching themselves onto beaches to catch seals, chasing stingrays in the shallows, timing the tides to get into rockpools, or headbutting great white sharks to death, Killer Whales must be the animal kingdom's most adaptive and inventive hunters. Think of the pod that's been taking revenge on boats in the Mediterranean, possibly because a boat hit one of them. They also display insanely intelligent behaviour in captivity such that they should never ever be kept there.

This book has been a little bit of a white (and black) whale for me. Ever since I first learned about the Killers In Eden I've been hunting for it. It didn't have a big print run and I don't think it ever got reprinted. It also doesn't help that there's a fictional work called Killers of Eden by Tom Mead (on the same topic), with a much bigger print run.

Unfortunately, my white (and black) whale didn't have the power to wreck my ship and leave me adrift. It reads very much like an academic's first attempt at mainstream non-fiction. I've read Clode's later work Voyagers which is a much more cohesive and insightful work. Killers In Eden is rather just a collection of source material with a few digressions. It might be that Clode was working to a deadline or there's just not that much material out there, but the work doesn't shine with the sort of glow you'd expect a story about a long-term cooperative whaling partnership between humans and killer whales should.

I wanted so much more on the history of Aboriginal tribes working with the whales long before white settlement. It's mentioned multiple times that the whales much preferred the black fellas to the white settlers. Why? Was it the old ties? We also got this interesting statement from Clode.

"It is a curious coincidence that when the Nullica tribe departed from Kiah Inlet in the early 1900s, the bulk of the killer whales also left Twofold Bay for the last time."

Curious indeed if only someone who was researching the killer whales in depth and their relationship with humans could explore that coincidence a bit further. I wonder where we could find that person.

There's plenty to like in this book even if it's not an all time great work of non-fiction. Killer Whales are so enigmatic. There's no documented case of them ever killing a human in the wild. (They're called Killer Whales because they kill whales). But how could you not find this story spooky.

An Inuit story tells of a man who harpooned a killer whale and each time he went to the edge of the ice to launch his kayak he found the killer whales waiting for him. In the end he had to give up the sea.

So now the hunt begins for a better Killer Whale book. Hopefully, I'll be able to come up with some crafty tactics worthy of the killers themselves in finding one.

[Robin · Rating 4 out of 5]

A meandering but generally informative biological exploration of one of the most fascinating periods in the history of Australia and also whaling generally. Clode's chosen structure is odd, dumping a bunch of biographical and historical detail at the start and then slowly circling back through subsequent chapters about general whale biology (as a rule, information should start broad and get narrower as it proceeds). As a result, surprisingly little attention is paid to the exploits of the Eden pod(s) during the time of the whales' partnership with the Twofold Bay whalers. This is presumably covered at great length in other works, but still, a little more detail would be welcome.

Nevertheless, a great deal of research, including reading the original diaries of the 19th-century whalers involved, has gone into the production of this book, and it shows. There are so many small amazing moments that sprang from this bizarre partnership, from orcas impatiently towing whale-boats, to whalers racing to reach a stranded orca before it is knifed to death by an ignorant passer-by, to the specific roles assumed by each orca during whale attacks, to the fact that the record for the longest blue whale was set here in Eden, with the assistance of the orcas. Along the way Clode neatly scuppers a few of the more popular myths about the Eden orcas, the most pervasive of which is that all orcas fled after Jackson/Typee was killed and/or after Old Tom was denied access to a whale's tongue. However, these small nuggets of eye-popping detail are few and downplayed in favour of generic information about whales, their habits, &c.

Clode's background in biology infuses all proceedings, and there is an abundance of information, including folklore, about orcas from around the world. This, and the more modern, sobre-minded consideration of the oft-mythologised Eden orcas, make this an informative and entertaining read throughout.

[Leslie · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The whale men regard these creatures as important allies...The killers show no fear of the boats but will attack the whale at the same time if the boat is stove, which often happens, they will not hurt the men when in the water...The Australian natives of Twofold Bay say the killers are the spirits of their own people and when they see them they ...point out particular individuals they have known." Oswald Brierly, 3 August 1861.

Fascinating research into how three generations of killer whales assisted the Aboriginal native "whale men" and later the European whalers in a little bay along the east coast of Australia from the late 1700s until 1930.

[Erica · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book voraciously after spotting killer whales in a sailing trip--it was informative and engaging.

[...]

20th anniversary edition coming soon! Release date TBA (I will update it once it's known).

Can't wait to add it to my orca shelf - which, at the moment, is missing very few books, and this one is on top of the wishlist. Killers in Eden has been impossible to acquire in recent years, especially its updated 2011 edition. I'm thrilled a newly updated one is now coming out. Await my review once I get my hands on it! (I love the cover update too!)

[Eilish · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a kid that was obsessed with orcas, having grown up on Free Willy and such - it was amazing to learn about these amazing creatures closer to home.

I traveled to Eden in August 2020 in hopes of whale watching, but unfortunately we weren’t able to get out on the water. So instead I visited the Eden Killer Whale museum and was enamoured enough I bought this book, and a couple others I have yet to read.

It’s a very informative book all in all. Danielle has done an amazing job compiling the information present in this book and presenting in such an easy to read and understanding manner. However, I was initially expecting more about the local orcas themselves, but the chapters covered a broad range of details - including prehistoric fossils from Australia.

[Sian · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. It had enough science to be informative but not too thick that it wasn't understood by the layman.

[Chris]

Perfect balance of evidence and anecdote to tell a remarkable tale. Teamwork, evolution, colonization, behavior, physiology, anthropology: It's all there.

Many thanks to J.

[Keith · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am fascinated by orcas and will waste hours watching killer whale documentaries on YouTube. So it was a pleasure reading about an unusual and brief cooperative venture between the apex predators of the oceanic and terrestrial worlds in KILLERS IN EDEN: THE STORY OF A RARE PARTNERSHIP BETWEEN MEN AND KILLER WHALES by marine biologist Danielle Clode. Eden is a small coastal town in south-east Australia. During the 19th and early 20th centuries, it was home to a small whaling industry. For about 70 years, a pod of 25-30 killer whales would herd baleen whales toward the whalers in exchange for getting first dibs on the whale tongues (you can view a documentary related to the book on YouTube, "Killers in Eden"). The book also describes the natural history of Orcinus, the largest members of the Delphinidae, oceanic dolphins, one of the main branches of Odontoceti, toothed whales. The author speculates that there has never been a recorded instance of killer whales eating a human because they don't like the taste of land animals and much prefer the salty fishiness of whales, seals, salmon, and sharks. Good to know in case one slips off an iceberg. Orcas are among God's most amazingly intelligent, socially complex, and terrifying creatures. Fascinating!

[Monika Shields · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fascinating and very readable summary of historic accounts of killer whales and humans hunting side by side off the coast of Australia, providing new interpretation based on the scientific knowledge gained since the early 1900s.

However, I had to dock points because some of that scientific knowledge was relayed inaccurately, such as the statement that male killer whales go through a growth spurt between 5-6 years old and reach sexual maturity at 10 years old. (In reality the growth spurt is in their teenage years and they reach sexual maturity around age 20.) This made me wonder how accurate all the other reporting was.