Lucy Cooke

I'm Lucy Cook.

I'm the author of Bitch on the Female of the Species and I've got a background in zoology.

delighted to fly to Seattle and meet this population of orcas.

She got wind of a pretty amazing discovery in killer whales.

Yeah, this felt like a really, really important story and one that I found inspirational.

Flew to Seattle.

You get a seaplane.

You get to feel like you're in a 1970s, you know, adventure TV series.

That's how everybody traveled in the 1970s was by seaplane to go and deal with emergencies, you know.

Yeah, I'd written to her offering up my services to join her on her research boat because I'd heard that she went out every day chasing orcas trying to catch their poo in a net.

That's what I do.

Okay.

And the reason why is because, as she'll tell you, poop is a goldmine.

You do what's called a distant poop follow.

Oh.

And I believe that that is a scientific term.

You form a little polite distance back.

Yeah, everyone needs some privacy.

Exactly.

You don't want to overcrowd them.

And at some point...

One of Giles' assistants.

A non-human research assistant.

Oh.

Eber the dog.

The former street dog from Sacramento.

We'll pick up the scent.

We're not talking a solid turd by any means.

It's more of a... Thick pancake batter?

Yeah.

Yeah, it was assumed that human females were the only species that went through it.

So we were just, yeah, we were just freaks.

Natural selection takes a pretty dim view of a loss of fertility.

And once you stop breeding, you die.

That's the general story.

So the idea was that perhaps human females were living beyond their reproductive shelf life because we were being propped up by regular meals and modern medicine.

And it's a thing, menopause.

It's a roller coaster.

You know, it's an emotional and physical roller coaster.

But she also says... Once it's... I was going to say it's icy fingers, but it's anything but icy.

Once it's...

It's hot fingers got a hold of me.

She did have in the back of her mind this question, which was... Why?

Why was I still alive?

But the thing about menopause... You know, I mean, I know it gets a lot of press now and everybody's allowed to talk about it.

My mother's generation, no one did.

You know, you were just sort of irrelevant after going, after your period stopped, you know, and you were kind of this sort of, you know, kind of grey puddle of purposelessness, you know.

Oh, God.

So Lucy.

And so there's this incredible, rich amount of data on their behavior and their movements.

But those salmon are really hard to find now because they've been hunted by humans.

Yeah, you know, 25 years ago at this time of year, there was a bunch of salmon that did go up this random little tributary halfway up the coast.

So the postmenopausal female whales, they might not be adding more of their genes to the gene pool, but they're not sitting around filing their nails and watching daytime soap operas.

These orca females are the repositories for ecological wisdom.

They're keeping their hunting community alive.

Do you know, I probably shouldn't answer this question, but I will.

I'll give you an honest answer because I did.

I felt incredibly moved by them.

I really did.

I felt very, I was really pleased that I made the effort and I went there and I spent time with Dr. Giles and, you know, understanding how evolution had granted these females these long lives with such purpose made me think,

differently about my loss of fertility and I found the idea that my value now was in my wisdom and my brain and the things that I can teach other people really empowering.

As opposed to feeling like you're a grey puddle that's, you know, decreasing relevance in the world and, you know.

Yeah.

It's the kind of, it's the opposite.

You know, in every way, I was like, be more orca.

Yeah.

Plus the fact that the older females are having tons of sex.