Back in 1987, a hot new trend caught on among orca whales in Puget Sound.
In the waters of Washington, a female orca was spotted wearing a dead salmon on her head – and after a month or so, orcas from her pod and a couple of others nearby were all wearing salmon hats. It was a bizarre but delightful phenomenon that researchers could never figure out. And when it suddenly became unfashionable for orcas to wear salmon on their heads, they all just stopped doing it and then never did it again. Until now.
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All trends are cyclical. Baggy pants were the hottest thing when I was in middle school and high school in the late 90s and early 2000s – and now they’re back, like we didn’t all agree they were terrible the first time around. Similarly, the salmon hat trend that was popular in the late 80s has come roaring back. Orcas were spotted this past October along Puget Sound on the northwest coast of the United States wearing salmon hats, just as they did 37 years ago.
Now, we’ll have to see if the trend catches on as intensely as it did back in ‘87. Of course, the real test of the salmon hat’s popularity will be whether the trend jumps from whales to humans. The Oscars are coming up, and I really want to see Cate Blanchett—the epitome of beauty and grace—walk the red carpet with a salmon on her head.
All these years later, scientists still don’t know why the salmon hat trend started, let alone understand why it’s coming back. New Scientist posits one theory, that it isn’t so much a fashion trend as it is a practical space-saving measure that allows the whales to carry some extra salmon with them for later.
Mind you, just because it’s practical, doesn’t mean it’s not fashionable—as anyone who’s ever worn cargo shorts will know all too well.
