The Pacific Northwest’s most endangered fashion icons may have found their statement piece.

In October 2024, a Southern Resident orca known as J27 Blackberry was photographed in Puget Sound with a dead salmon draped across his head. That strange, yet familiar image immediately sent people racing back to one of the weirdest marine mammal behaviors ever observed: the “salmon hat.” Yes, salmon hat. As in, an orca swimming around while wearing a fish like a floppy silver beret.

It sounds like a joke written by a tired oceanographer after too much coffee, but scientists have been aware of this behavior for decades. The big question is not whether orcas can be ridiculous. They clearly can. The question is why.

Wait, What Is a Salmon Hat?

A salmon hat is exactly what it sounds like: an orca carries, balances, or drapes a dead salmon on its head while swimming. The behavior was first noticed in 1987 among Southern Resident orcas in the Pacific Northwest. It reportedly started with one whale, then spread through the population for a while before fading. That is part of what makes the whole thing so fascinating. It looked less like a one-time accident and more like a trend. Imagine one whale showing up with a salmon on its head and the rest of the pod thinking, “Actually, she’s pulling it off.”

Decades later, in 2024, the internet saw J27 Blackberry donning a salmon and collectively responded the only way the internet knows how: with delight, memes, and several thousand jokes about aquatic fashion week.

Fashion Trend, Food Signal, or Just Whale Nonsense?

While clearly intentional, the purpose of the salmon hat remains to be determined. Orca behavior, which is often social and intelligent, is difficult to translate into human terms. One possible explanation is play. Orcas are highly intelligent animals, and many intelligent animals play with objects in their environment. A salmon hat may simply be a food toy, which is a phrase we should probably all appreciate. Another possibility is social learning. If one orca does something noticeable, others may copy it. Orcas are known for complex social lives and learned behaviors. In human terms, this would be less “individual styling choice” and more “the group chat has decided this is cool now.” A third possibility is that it has something to do with food abundance. Southern Resident orcas rely heavily on salmon. If salmon are plentiful, an orca may not need to eat every fish immediately. That could leave room for carrying, sharing, or playing with a catch.

In other words, salmon hats may not mean the whales are being careless with food. They may mean there is enough food around for a whale to do something other than immediately eat.

The Serious Part Under the Silly Hat

The Southern Resident orcas are not just any orcas. They are an endangered population that lives in the Salish Sea and nearby Pacific waters. The group includes J, K, and L pods, and they are deeply tied to salmon. That makes the salmon hat story more complicated than it first appears. While humorous, the behavior may also point toward something scientists watch closely: whether the whales are finding enough to eat.

Southern Residents face serious pressures, including reduced salmon availability, vessel noise, pollution, and the challenges of maintaining a small endangered population. If a whale is playing with a salmon, carrying it, or saving it to share with family members, that could be a small sign of a better feeding moment. It does not mean the population is suddenly fine. It does mean that, at least in that moment, the whale had a salmon to spare.

Try your hand at deciphering this scrambled aquatic creature quiz!

Is the Trend Really Back?

This is where scientists tap the brakes. The 2024 photo of J27 Blackberry was real, and there were reports of other recent salmon-on-head sightings. But some experts have cautioned that one viral image is not enough to declare the return of a full-blown orca fashion trend. That does not make the story less interesting. It actually makes it better. We have a documented behavior from the 1980s, a new photo nearly four decades later, and a bunch of plausible explanations without one neat answer. We can’t know if J27 Blackberry was trying to bring back 1987. The salmon hat sighting may not mean there was an orca runway show happening somewhere beneath the waves. But it does suggest that animal behavior can be more flexible, social, and surprising than we sometimes expect.

Also, let’s be honest, “1987 salmon hat revival” is a stronger comeback than most band reunions.

Orcas Have Culture, Too

One reason the salmon hat story has captivated so many of us, is how familiar it feels. Humans have fads that we pass them around. We copy each other. We decide, for reasons that later generations may never understand, that certain things are suddenly stylish. Orcas are not humans, but researchers have long been interested in the idea that whales and dolphins have culture, meaning learned behaviors that spread through social groups. The salmon hat behavior is especially interesting because of the way it emerged, appeared to spread among Southern Resident orcas, then seemed to fade.

More broadly, in observing and cataloging Orca behavior, researchers and whale watchers have developed a whole vocabulary, from things like breaches and spyhops to pectoral slaps, tail lobs, tactile contact, and kelping (more on that below). While the term “salmon hat” sounds like something the internet invented, the broader idea of orcas doing curious, physical, object-focused things is not new. For instance, scientists have long observed Orcas interacting with objects in ways that look playful or social. The Center for Whale Research lists “kelping” as an orca behavior, describing it as playing with kelp or seaweed by dragging it on the body, often trying to position it in the notch of the flukes.

That does not prove salmon hats and kelping are the same kind of behavior. A strip of kelp is not a dead salmon, and a documented orca behavior is not the same thing as a scientific explanation for a viral photo. But it does give the salmon hat story useful context. Orcas already have a known behavioral world that includes touch, play, object interaction, and repeated social habits. Continuing to observe the behaviors of the Souther Resident Orca population will help us to understand their world a bit better, and hopefully will help shape how we care for these incredible creatures.

The Thing To Remember

A salmon hat is funny because it looks absurd. It matters because it may hint at the rich social lives of orcas and the food conditions that shape them. So yes, laugh at the whale hat. You are allowed. It is a salmon on an orca’s head. But then dig a little deeper. Because beneath the world’s wettest fashion trend is a story about culture, survival, and one of the Pacific Northwest’s most beloved endangered animals.

That is your Daily Brain for today.

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