Lolita was captured off the coast of Whidbey Island in August 1970, during the largest orca capture in history.

Lolita was captured off the coast of Whidbey Island in August 1970, during the largest orca capture in history. WALLIE V. FUNK PHOTOGRAPHS, CENTER FOR PACIFIC NORTHWEST STUDIES, WESTERN LIBRARIES HERITAGE RESOURCES, WESTERN WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY

Teaching a killer whale to swim with a human being and do tricks in exchange for food was invented on the Seattle waterfront in 1965. Its inventor was a 29-year-old businessman named Ted Griffin. He owned the Seattle Marine Aquarium (not to be confused with Seattle Aquarium), and he once told PBS he had dreamed of swimming with whales and dolphins since he was a kid.

In 1965, someone who knew about Griffin’s ambitions alerted him that a killer whale had been caught in a fisherman’s net off the coast of Canada. Griffin bought the whale, which he named Namu, and brought it to the Seattle waterfront, where he trained it to perform tricks and allow him to ride it. It turned him into an overnight celebrity; in no time, he had a movie deal and a side business capturing killer whales in the nooks and crannies of Puget Sound. Griffin’s business partner was a Tacoma fisherman named Don Goldsberry, and their clients were marine parks around the world and even the US military.

At the time, the assumption was that orcas were dangerous. No one had any inkling how smart and sensitive these creatures are…

Christopher Frizzelle was The Stranger's print editor, and first joined the staff in 2003. He was the editor-in-chief from 2007 to 2016, and edited the story by Eli Sanders that won a 2012 Pulitzer...