Airplanes. Explosives. Six trapped orcas. A legal permit.In March 1976, SeaWorld contractors captured six young killer whales in Budd Inlet near Olympia. Within days, a public outcry, a fast-moving court battle and an unlikely coalition of citizens, journalists, scientists and state officials would help secure their release.Featuring firsthand recollections from the late Ralph Munro, eyewitnesses, historians and participants in the legal fight, this episode tells the dramatic story of the Budd Inlet Six and the event many credit with ending the capture of wild orcas in Washington waters.A story of whales, activism, government and a changing public conscience.Six trapped orcas. A legal permit. A two-week court battle that changed Washington forever. Fifty years after the Budd Inlet Six, we revisit the capture that helped end wild orca captures in the Pacific Northwest.A poster made by school students in 1976 as part of a campaign to free the whales. Courtesy: Washington State Archives.

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