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This artwork was inspired by the 17 days that Tahlequah, a southern resident orca whale,
and her sisters carried her newborn daughter named Tali through the waters of the
Salish Sea after the calf died. Through this sacred journey of grief, Tahlequah shared her
story with the world, asking for change and waking the world to the threat of dwindling
salmon populations, the orca’s primary food source. The artist implores all of us: “We need
to wake up and do better.”Label
Imagery: Seawolves with Salish spirit faces on the petroglyph. Out of the petroglyph base, you can see 2 Orca fins a mother and child emerging.
Narrative: We were inspired from the beginning of this project by the 17 days that Tahlequah and her sisters carried her daughter named Tali through the waters of the Salish Sea when she died in 2018.
A sacred journey of grief, she shared her story with the world asking for change. Waking up the world to dwindling salmon populations, their primary food source. This is impacting the survival rate of both pregnancies and young calves in particular. There are a constellation of factors impacting the wellness of our waterways and all of her water peoples.
Current fisheries management styles that encourage commercially fishing the aggregate instead of more traditional styles that localize fishing further inland of the Salish Sea, once each stream gets the escapement goals they need, is threatening our endangered and threatened native runs of salmon even further.
We are living in dangerous times when it comes to the health of our lands and waters. We must adjust from our outdated ways of thinking and doing. This life of taking more than we need, polluting our waters and lands is killing our planet. We need to wake up and do better.