Young orcas in the Pacific Northwest have picked up an unusual habit: balancing dead salmon on their heads, a behavior researchers call the “dead salmon hat.” The practice was first recorded in 1987, faded for decades, and has now resurfaced. A photo-verified sighting on Oct. 25, 2024, at Point No Point confirmed the trend is back, with an adult male known as J27 Blackberry identified in connection with the revival. The return of this quirky fad is drawing fresh attention to how killer whales learn from one another and why certain social behaviors vanish and reappear across generations.
Why the dead salmon hat matters beyond novelty
Orca researchers have long treated the salmon-hat behavior as one of the clearest examples of cultural transmission among non-human animals. When a single whale starts carrying a dead fish on its rostrum and others in the pod begin copying, the pattern looks less like instinct and more like a social trend, comparable to how fashion or slang spreads among humans. The fact that the behavior disappeared for roughly three decades and then returned raises a pointed question: what conditions trigger its revival?
One working hypothesis is that the fad reemerges when a high-status male initiates it during periods when prey is abundant enough that whales can afford to play with their food rather than eat it immediately. Testing that idea would require cross-referencing individual orca dominance hierarchies with salmon-density data from the same seasons. No published study has yet done so, but the reappearance of the behavior after such a long gap gives researchers a fresh data window. The identification of J27 Blackberry in recent field reports offers a starting point, since his social rank and pod relationships are already well documented by long-term monitoring programs.
Beyond its novelty, the dead salmon hat matters because it illustrates how flexible orca behavior can be. Unlike hunting techniques that clearly improve survival, this trend has no obvious practical payoff. That makes it a useful test case for understanding how non-human cultures sustain purely playful or symbolic actions. If a behavior that offers no clear benefit can still spread and persist, it suggests that social learning in orcas is driven by more than simple efficiency. Status, curiosity, and the pleasure of imitation may all play a part.
Sightings, drone footage, and the 1987 origin
The earliest known instance of orcas placing dead salmon on their heads dates to 1987, when the behavior spread within a population as a short-lived fad. The University of Texas at Austin’s Marine Science Institute has described this episode as a textbook case of trend behavior, in which a novel action catches on socially, proliferates through a group, and then fades without any obvious external cause. Observers at the time recorded multiple whales in the same community taking part, often within a single season. The 1987 wave eventually stopped, and for years the salmon hat seemed to be a historical curiosity rather than an active behavior.
That changed in recent weeks. A photo-based sighting on Oct. 25, 2024, at Point No Point provided the first confirmed visual evidence that the trend had returned, with J27 Blackberry reportedly balancing a salmon on his head as he surfaced. A second instance was observed by a scientist, though no photograph was captured during that encounter. These two observations, close together in time and space, suggested more than a one-off accident. Instead, they hinted that the behavior might be circulating again within at least one segment of the Southern Resident killer whale population.
Separately, the Center for Whale Research’s Michael Weiss had captured drone video in 2018 showing an orca carrying a salmon on its head, suggesting the behavior may have been quietly persisting or re-emerging in isolated cases before the 2024 cluster drew wider notice. Weiss’s footage, recorded from above, offered a perspective that shore-based observers rarely achieve and helped confirm that the whale was deliberately balancing the fish rather than accidentally snagging it. The animal repeatedly adjusted the salmon’s position, behavior that looks more like play than like an unintended entanglement.
The combination of the 1987 historical record, the 2018 drone footage, and the 2024 sightings creates a timeline that spans nearly four decades. Across that period, the Southern Resident killer whale population has faced severe declines in Chinook salmon availability, habitat degradation, and vessel disturbance. Whether the salmon hat reappears only when food stress eases or whether it surfaces regardless of ecological conditions is a question that current data cannot answer definitively. For now, researchers can only note that the behavior has persisted, in some form, through both relatively good and bad years for salmon runs.
Open questions about orca social learning and the salmon-hat cycle
Several gaps in the evidence limit what scientists can conclude. No primary sighting logs or raw field notes from the Center for Whale Research or equivalent bodies have been released publicly for the 2024 observations. The chronology depends on journalistic accounts rather than peer-reviewed publications, and direct statements from field observers beyond the single attribution to Michael Weiss are absent. Without access to underlying data, independent researchers cannot yet verify the number of individual whales involved, the duration of each salmon-hat episode, or whether the behavior was restricted to J27 Blackberry’s pod or spread to other family groups.
The lack of peer-reviewed analysis also means the high-status-male hypothesis remains speculative. J27 Blackberry’s role could be that of an innovator who reintroduced the behavior, or he could simply be the whale who happened to be photographed doing it. Distinguishing between those possibilities requires systematic observation across multiple pods and seasons, the kind of longitudinal work that takes years to produce results. It would also require careful mapping of social networks within the population: which whales associate most closely with Blackberry, and do those same individuals show a higher likelihood of adopting the salmon hat?
What researchers can say with confidence is that orcas are among a small number of species that exhibit clearly identifiable cultural fads. The dead salmon hat sits alongside other documented orca behaviors, such as the boat-rudder interactions observed off the Iberian Peninsula, as evidence that killer whales learn socially, innovate, and sometimes engage in behavior that appears to be primarily recreational. These fads can sweep through a population and then vanish, leaving only scattered records and memories among human observers.
The broader context is that cultural traditions in whales and dolphins have become a growing focus of marine science. From distinctive vocal dialects to pod-specific hunting strategies, these learned behaviors can shape everything from migration routes to reproductive success. A seemingly frivolous trend like the salmon hat may therefore offer clues about how more consequential traditions arise and spread. If scientists can track who starts the fad, who copies it, and who ignores it, they may be able to infer the structure of influence and leadership within orca societies.
There is also a human dimension to how such stories circulate. Public fascination with playful or charismatic animal behavior often drives attention and funding toward conservation. Readers who encounter the salmon-hat trend through popular coverage may be more inclined to support organizations that monitor and protect these whales, including those reached through online subscription appeals that help sustain long-term environmental reporting. In that sense, cultural fads among whales can indirectly influence cultural and financial choices among humans.
What comes next for the salmon-hat trend
For now, scientists are watching closely to see whether the 2024 sightings mark the start of a broader wave or remain a brief flare-up. If additional whales are documented wearing salmon on their heads over the coming seasons, researchers will have a rare opportunity to study a cultural trend in real time, rather than reconstructing it after the fact. That would allow them to test ideas about leadership, imitation, and the impact of environmental conditions with far more precision than has been possible so far.
If the fad fizzles, it will still leave behind valuable clues. Even a handful of well-documented cases can refine models of how innovation arises in small, endangered populations and how fragile cultural traits may be to demographic loss. For the Southern Residents, whose numbers remain precariously low, every behavior that depends on learning across generations is potentially at risk when individuals die. The dead salmon hat may be whimsical, but it also underscores how much knowledge and social complexity can be concentrated in just a few dozen whales.
In the meantime, the image of a powerful predator gliding through cold coastal waters with a limp salmon perched on its head serves as a reminder that intelligence in the animal world is not only about survival calculations. It is also about curiosity, play, and the shared habits that make a community recognizable to its own members. Whether the trend spreads or fades, the latest sightings add one more chapter to a long-running story of how orcas invent, remember, and occasionally resurrect the fashions of their past.
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*This article was researched with the help of AI, with human editors creating the final content.
