Avatar: The Way of Water's Tulkun share a surprising connection with real whales. Set fifteen years after the first Avatar, the long-awaited sequel finds Jake and Neytiri's Na'vi family fleeing their forest home to seek refuge with the reef-dwelling Metkayina clan. There, their troubled middle child Lo'ak (Britain Dalton) befriends a Tulkun, essentially a whale-like creature, named Payakan. The somewhat strange and unexpected subplot got viewers wondering if it's actually possible for a human to befriend a whale.

Now, a renowned ocean ecologist has the answer. During a recent interview with GQ, Dr. Carl Safina provided several anecdotes about people befriending whales, including an orca named Luna off the shores of British Columbia, as well as his personal experience befriending a whale during his PhD studies off the South Shore of Long Island. In both cases, Dr. Safina notes that the whales had been separated from their family, similar to...