Baby orca named for Olympia man who saved its relative from capture 50 years ago
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- Olympia marked 50 years since the 1976 Budd Inlet Six orca capture.
- Washington sued SeaWorld after affidavits showed chasing and nets violated permits.
- SeaWorld agreed to stop captures in Washington; descendants noted today.
Karen Munro Ellick said it was an unusually warm spring day in Olympia on March 7, 1976, when she and her husband Ralph Munro went sailing with friends on South Puget Sound waters. The trip was cut short when the group noticed a barrage of marine vehicles chasing a pod of Bigg’s Killer Whales in Budd Inlet.
“We saw a pod of orcas being chased by two large boats, a speed boat and a seaplane,” Munro Ellick said during a March 3 Olympia City Council meeting. “We knew it was the SeaWorld capture crew, which had already taken over 60 of our orcas and sold them to marine parks in the U.S. and overseas.”
The incident became the last time killer whales were captured in U.S. waters. This year marks 50 years since the capture and attempted sale of what’s now referred to as the Budd Inlet Six, after Ralph Munro helped file a lawsuit for their release.
The Olympia City Council read a proclamation on March 3 recognizing the anniversary and proclaiming March 7, 2026, as Budd Inlet Six Commemoration Day.
Munro Ellick recalled more of the events that unfolded that day and in the weeks that followed. She said their sailboat captain attempted to get their boat in between the orcas and the capture boats, but the men swore at them and said they had permits.
“The orcas tried to escape, but the seaplane taxied back and forth, and the men threw small explosives into the water,” she said. “They drove the terrified animals into the shallow bay and threw nets around them.”
She said the group was very upset. Her husband told them they might not be able to stop them, but that they had to watch and remember everything the capture crew did.
“We watched as the men separated the young orcas from their family, prodding them with long poles. The orcas’ cries were heartbreaking,” she said. “The animals outside the nets did not leave, but kept circling around and calling to their captive relatives.”
She said that evening, she and Ralph contacted the press about the situation. The next morning, it was front-page news and a TV news station was on the way to film the orcas trapped in the net. The story spread quickly after that.
Munro Ellick said people came to the harbor in Olympia to protest the capture of orcas. She said her husband was on Gov. Dan Evans’ staff at the time, and the two worked with State Attorney General Slade Gorton to investigate the situation.
“Gorton had three of his assistant AGs study the permit to find any provisions that were violated.” she said. “They found a key one: the orcas were to be allowed to swim naturally and not be chased.”
She said Washington State filed a lawsuit against SeaWorld on March 10, 1976, and legal proceedings went on for several days at the federal courthouse in Seattle.
“SeaWorld had an army of lawyers and public relations people there,” she said. “Our sailboat crew submitted affidavits about what we had seen.”
Munro Ellick said proceedings went back and forth, with it appearing as though they had won, until SeaWorld won an appeal. Then more negative information about previous captures began coming to light, she said, and on March 23, 1976, SeaWorld signed an agreement that they would never capture orcas in Washington waters again, and that the Budd Inlet Six would be set free.
Ralph Munro went on to serve as Washington Secretary of State from 1980 until 2001. He died on March 20, 2025, the same day a new orca calf descended from the Budd Inlet Six was spotted in the Salish Sea. The orca has since been named “Munro” in Ralph’s honor.
According to the Pacific Whale Watch Association, the orca calf’s great-grandmother was one of the six whales captured and temporarily held by SeaWorld in Budd Inlet. Her name was “Wake.”
“Wake is responsible for eight assumed calves, 16 grand-calves, and six great grand-calves,” according to PWWA. “Without the direct efforts of Ralph Munro, at least 30 Bigg’s killer whales would have never been born.”
Mayor Dontae Payne said he just learned about Olympia’s history with orca captures through the proclamation.
“I had not known about this history right here in our community, and so I thank you all for bringing this to our attention because I learned something new,” he said.
Payne said the conversation made him think about friends and family on the East Coast who have never been to Washington and think orcas are in abundance.
“It’s such a wonderful thing that we have here and we don’t get to see them all the time, and they’re such beautiful creatures that swim in our waters, and I’m very proud that we’re celebrating this moment right here, right now, recognizing the beauty of the nature that we have in Washington State,” he said.
Council member Kelly Green said she, too, had no clue the end of orca captures had ties to Olympia. She said her child came across the movie “Free Willy” recently, and she couldn’t understand why people would want to capture orcas. She said that points to the work Munro did having generational effects.
This story was originally published March 5, 2026 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Baby orca named for Olympia man who saved its relative from capture 50 years ago."
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