“I’ve found my porpoise!” Activist Peggy Oki on following her passions and taking action for dolphins and whales

Activist Peggy Oki on following her passions and taking action for dolphins and whales

Peggy Oki is a legend in the skateboarding world. At 18 and as the only female member of the Zephyr competition team, she won first place in women’s freestyle and in 2012 she was inducted into the skateboarding hall of fame. But it wasn’t her skateboarding success that brought her to my attention – it was her 2016 Ted Talk about creating art as activism for dolphins and whales.

Maui dolphins

Peggy’s Ted Talk, which has 4.8 million views, opens with footage of her sighting a humpback whale in Alaskan waters. As a lifelong surfer, Peggy has had many encounters with dolphins and whales, collectively called cetaceans, and who Peggy terms the ‘cetacean nation’.

I talk to Peggy just after she has hosted two vegan events in Raglan, New Zealand, screening the documentaries Milked and Eating Our Way to Extinction. It is a few days before she has another big event creating and exhibiting a mosaic of origami Maui dolphins. When we chat, she is in the library at Raglan collecting origami dolphins that local children have made.

Maui dolphins are the world’s smallest dolphin. They are critically endangered with estimates that there are now only 50 left. Peggy says, “Their main cause of death is as by-catch or entanglement in fishing gear. It’s been very eye opening for me, because my previous efforts were regarding commercial whaling.” By-catch is a term meaning the unwanted animals trapped by commercial fishing nets during fishing for a different species.

Origami whales

Peggy is the founder of the Origami Whale Project. It is a huge installation of 40,000 origami whales which she took to the International Whaling Officer in Washington DC. Each piece of folded paper represents a whale who has been killed since the return of sanctioned commercial whaling.

I ask her how it began. “It first came about when I was asked if I wanted to coordinate an art activity for the Santa Barbara Whale Festival. They proposed origami sea creatures and I said there was a tradition of 1000 origami cranes in Japanese folklore. I reached out to animal welfare organisations that were working together to end whaling and looked up the whaling quotas for Japan and Norway which was 1400. In order to meet that goal, I started going to schools talking about whales and getting kids educated and excited about how cool whales are. Kids are so open in their heart, and they wanted to help.”

When Peggy was asked to present it to the Whaling Officer in Washington, she needed to find a way to exhibit 1400 whales. “It evolved to making a curtain of whales. We organised and hand stitched it, arranging the strands so it was like a rainbow. That was the first curtain. Since then, we have continued adding to it. We’re now at over 40,000.

”It’s overwhelming to realise that each paper whale represents a real whale who has been killed. After seeing the art piece, some people thank me, and some are in tears or very sombre. And of course, it’s not that I wanted people to feel sad but that was the reality and my way of presenting it.”

Allowing life to unfold

For Peggy, this organic evolution of following her passion is a thread that runs through her life. When I ask her how she became the only female skateboarder in the Zephyr team she says, “I didn’t even try, I was skating on this hill and practising my surfing moves on a skateboard and this boy turned up and asked if I wanted to be on a skateboarding team.”

It was surfing that also led to Peggy’s interest in cetaceans. “Surfing drew me to the ocean. Hearing about dolphins surfing – that was like wow, dolphins surf! This was in the late 1970s, and scientists were just starting to say that play was a sign of intelligence – well, yes, of course. So that’s where I got very interested in studying dolphins in the wild to prove that they were intelligent.”

Peggy went on to study a degree in Field Biology and then a Bachelor’s in Fine Art and Painting. On being introduced to the work of Andy Goldsworthy and environmental art she realised she could combine her two interests. Her passion for the cetaceans that inspire her art and activism is palpable as she talks. “It’s really fascinating to think of these beings and how they are so organised and intelligent. I have a photo of an orca brain next to the human brain. Their brain is five times the size and far more convoluted than a human brain. The paralimbic lobe, the part of the brain that handles emotions, is much larger than it is in a human’s. Fascinating!”

Whales in captivity

“On the flip side, the sad thing is that people want them in captivity and that’s one of the things that I have campaigned on. I have campaigned for one particular female orca – they call her Lolita but I call her by her original name which is Tokitae which I think is much more respectful of her. She’s been in captivity for 52 and a half years.”

The campaigns to release Tokitae have been ongoing for many years. Peggy has helped enormously with a hard-hitting video about Tokitae’s brutal capture and the subsequent murder of members of her family. She is hopeful of a release; however, the situation is complicated by Tokitae’s health and concerns she may carry a disease to her pod, the endangered Southern resident orcas, who now only number 73. But Peggy is hopeful, and a couple of weeks after our chat she posts on Instagram to tell her followers that this shared dream is close to coming true. Talk of Tokitae brings us to the SWIMS Act which is US legislation to ban the moving and breeding of whales. If breeding in captivity stops, whales cannot be replaced so over time there will no longer be any whales in captivity. Peggy is modest about her input in this campaign but since she announced the bill 40 legislators have co-signed.

Advocating for veganism

Peggy has been vegan for over 20 years. “I had a budgie and I named her Cheeky. She had so much personality! Knowing that I was eating her kind – chickens and turkeys – I realised I could no longer do it.” She had the same realisations about fish, wondering if they had ‘personalities and souls’ and tried to connect with them by putting her finger up against an aquarium.

Peggy attributes her health to her vegan diet. At 67, she still surfs regularly. “I think a lot of it has to do with being vegan. I don’t even drink coffee or energy drinks.” Peggy is passionate about raising awareness of the link between what we eat and the climate crisis. “We are so close to devastating our planet. There are already reports of whales adjusting their migratory patterns because of the food availability. This is really big, and people are still eating animal products. One of the things I would like to suggest that since Eating Our Way to Extinction is free online, anyone can organise a private home screening. Prepare a vegan meal that would provide alternatives to animal products.”

A few days after the Maui dolphin mosaic is completed, Peggy will speak at a climate conference in Raglan about choosing a vegan diet. “There’s a very moving Ted Talk by Captain Peter Hammersted, one of Sea Shepherd’s leading captains. It really inspired me to think about how I’m going to talk about saving dolphins and whales from by-catch and entanglement. I am passionate that we need to shift to a plant-based diet. There will be plenty of people at the festival who aren’t vegan yet, so hopefully I will be able to convince them.”

Finding purpose

I ask what Peggy is most proud of in her over 25 years of activism for cetaceans. “I wouldn’t use the word proud, but the origami whale project is what I have been most excited by. And more recently the Maui dolphin origami mosaic, which is called Entanglement – Double Disaster. There are only 50 Maui dolphins left, and their leading cause of death is entanglement. That’s what I’m working on in Raglan. I’ve already made one mosaic in Washington DC, but I want one specifically in New Zealand, to raise awareness to the public about this dolphin and how we need to get on the back of the New Zealand government and say, do something!

“My intention is to go anywhere in the world where I would be invited and supported to bring the entanglement project to raise awareness of this topic. There is nothing else that is killing over 300,000 dolphins and whales every year. 250,000 sea turtles are killed due to by-catch entanglement. This is something I am very passionate about. I’ve recently coined a phrase – I’ve found my porpoise!

“One question that people ask me is how did skateboarding relate to what you are doing now. To be a skateboarder you have to be tenacious. You fall, hit the ground and it hurts. You get back up and you just keep working on those moves. And that’s how you have to be as an activist. You just choose to be tenacious and don’t give up."

By Ursula Watson

This article was first published in The Vegan 2023 Issue 3. The Vegan is our quarterly in-house members’ exclusive magazine featuring interviews, reviews, recipes, deep dives into veganism, and more! To receive your copy, please join us to support our work to help people go and stay vegan, and protect the rights of existing vegans.

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