Illustrations of various whale-like creatures and text are set against a textured, parchment-style background.

American Cetacean Society - Puget Sound Chapter

LXCL:Donations greatly appreciated!Please RSVP for our October 6th Chapter Meeting and Speaker Event!Our meetings are always free to attend and any amount you can donate (even $9) is super appreciated and helps us pay for the room rental and speaker expenses.Thank you!

RSVP for ACS-PS Meeting on 10/06/2026

Join the Puget Sound Chapter of the American Cetacean Society in Room 6 (Blue Building) of the Phinney Neighborhood Center for our October chapter meeting. Our guest speaker this month will be ACS National President&nbsp;Uko Gorter, who will present his talk entitled:&nbsp; When Whales stopped being Fish: Cetaceans as a taxonomic anomaly &quot;The uncertain, unsettled condition of this science of Cetology is in the very vestibule attested by the fact, that in some quarters it still remains a moot point whether a whale be a fish.&quot;Thus proclaims Ishmael, the narrator and protagonist of Herman Melville&#39;s epic novel of Moby Dick (1851), a mere decade before Darwin&#39;s publication &quot;On theOrigin of Species&quot; (1859).Today every third-grader can tell you that whales are mammals. A notion that seems no longer contested. Yet for centuries, whales, dolphins, and porpoises (cetaceans) defied systemizers and naturalists as to where to place them in the natural order. We&#39;ll dive back in time and unravel the scientific journey. Uko&rsquo;s interest in nature led him to become a natural history illustrator. Specializing in marine mammal illustration, Uko Gorter has traveled extensively to observe whales, dolphins, and other marine mammals in their natural environment. Uko&rsquo;s work has appeared in scientific journals, museums, interpretive signs, and many books. The culmination of this work was illustrating all marine mammal species for the second edition of &ldquo;Marine Mammals of the World: A Comprehensive Guide to Their Identification&rdquo;, authored by Thomas Jefferson, Marc Webber, and Robert Pitman (Elsevier Press, 2015). More recently his work was featured in the &quot;Anatomy of Dolphins; Insights into Body Structure and Function&quot; (Cozzi et al., 2017), and the &quot;Encyclopedia of Whales, Dolphins, and Porpoises&quot; (Erich Hoyt. 2017).Uko joined the American Cetacean Society in 2002, and is the Society&#39;s current President. Doors open at 7pm, socializing with guests at 7:15pm, and talk starts at 7:30pm

Join the Puget Sound Chapter of the American Cetacean Society in Room 6 (Blue Building) of the Phinney Neighborhood Center for our October chapter meeting. Our guest speaker this month will be ACS National President Uko Gorter, who will present his talk entitled:  When Whales stopped being Fish: Cetaceans as a taxonomic anomaly "The uncertain, unsettled condition of this science of Cetology is in the very vestibule attested by the fact, that in some quarters it still remains a moot point whether a whale be a fish."Thus proclaims Ishmael, the narrator and protagonist of Herman Melville's epic novel of Moby Dick (1851), a mere decade before Darwin's publication "On theOrigin of Species" (1859).Today every third-grader can tell you that whales are mammals. A notion that seems no longer contested. Yet for centuries, whales, dolphins, and porpoises (cetaceans) defied systemizers and naturalists as to where to place them in the natural order. We'll dive back in time and unravel the scientific journey. Uko’s interest in nature led him to become a natural history illustrator. Specializing in marine mammal illustration, Uko Gorter has traveled extensively to observe whales, dolphins, and other marine mammals in their natural environment. Uko’s work has appeared in scientific journals, museums, interpretive signs, and many books. The culmination of this work was illustrating all marine mammal species for the second edition of “Marine Mammals of the World: A Comprehensive Guide to Their Identification”, authored by Thomas Jefferson, Marc Webber, and Robert Pitman (Elsevier Press, 2015). More recently his work was featured in the "Anatomy of Dolphins; Insights into Body Structure and Function" (Cozzi et al., 2017), and the "Encyclopedia of Whales, Dolphins, and Porpoises" (Erich Hoyt. 2017).Uko joined the American Cetacean Society in 2002, and is the Society's current President. Doors open at 7pm, socializing with guests at 7:15pm, and talk starts at 7:30pm

American Cetacean Society - Puget Sound Chapter

When Whales stopped being Fish: Cetaceans as a taxonomic anomaly

Phinney Neighborhood Center

RSVP for ACS-PS Meeting on 10/06/2026

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