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Introducing Our Orca Whales Our beautiful inland protected waters are 90 miles from the Pacific ocean beaches of Washington and Oregon. In Puget Sound we have 172 San Juan Islands that you won't find along the Pacific coast. In the waters of Puget Sound, among the San Juan Islands, we have sea conditions that resemble a large lake, unlike the ocean swell you find along the Pacific coast. Our 3 pods of orcas spend the summer months in these inland waters and venture out to the ocean in the winter months. However, they are too far offshore to be seen from the beaches of the Washington coast. You can, however, in the spring and fall, sometimes see gray whales migrating along the Pacific coast beaches of Washington and Oregon. A Gray, Humpback, Blue, Sperm, Minke, plus many others are called whales. An Orca (also known as Killer Whale or Blackfish) is also referred to as a whale. However, they are really the largest of the Dolphin family. Any and all whales are wonderful to watch, but the real showoffs are the Orcas. The Orcas are what most people come to this area to see. We often see Gray Whales in the Puget Sound waters (also called the "Salish Sea"), but they are not very exciting to watch. They spend 95% of their time underwater, whereas the Orca usually spend much more of their time on the surface, often breaching (leaping) and frolicking around. The Gray whale is usually a solitary mammal, but the Orcas live with their family group, called a pod. There are 3 pods of Orca Whales that reside in our waters, and it's pretty exciting when we see most or all of these pods at one time. Orca whales communicate with clicks and high-pitched sounds. Click on the link below to hear one. Check out this site for more orca sounds and pictures. There are approximately 90 whales in the three Orca pods. We will know more when we can count the numbers in late spring and see who had new calves. We will also see who did not return. When they do not return, they are assumed to have died because they stay within their pods their entire lives. The Orcas pods in our area are designated by the letters J,K, and L. These are known as the southern residents. These Orcas have all been labeled with numbers and named. There are also northern residents that reside at the north end of Vancouver Island off the coast of British Columbia, and these have also been labeled with numbers and named. Since these whales stay with their mother their entire life, whether male or female, we pretty much know their whole family tree. Researchers learned that they could identify them by their dorsal fins and the white patch right behind the dorsal fin, called a saddle patch. Each one is unique, so after going through thousands of photographs researchers were able to identify all of them. Each of these whales is given a number, J1, J2 and so forth. They are also given nicknames, for example J1 is also known as Ruffles. He's approximately in his mid fifties. His mother J2, known as Granny, is in her nineties. When you see J1, J2 is usually not far behind. J pod stays in these inland waters among the San Juan Islands year round, with an occasional foray to the outside for a couple of weeks. K and L pods leave around late September - October and return at the end of May. They then spend the summer here frolicking and feeding with J pod. We use to think that K and L pod's winter range was from the tip of Vancouver Island to the Columbia River, until a few years ago when, in the middle of winter, they were identified off the coast of Monterey Bay, California. Their winter range is obviously more extended than we thought. The life span of the female orca whales is between 0 and 90 years. The average age is 50 years. Orca whales mature and first reproduce at the age of 14 or 15 years. The gestation period is 17 months and they give birth to only one calf per gestation. Their fertility period spans 38 to 45 years. The average age of the males is 29 years, with a maximum age of about 50 years. The males cannot flush out pcbs as females do with the birth of their first calf. The local Orca whales are fish eating whales. Approximately 90% of their diet is salmon. One possible cause of their drop in numbers may be depletion of the salmon, their food source. Others may be toxic pollution and noise pollution from Navy sonar, or other seismic exploration. These Orcas have been studied for over 30 years. We have been keeping track of them all this time and we know them very well. They have very distinct personalities. In addition to these local residents, we occasionally see Orcas called Transients who feed on seals, sea lions, and other mammals. Their hunting methods and their language are very different from the resident Orcas, and their DNA shows they have not interbred for thousands of years. The Transients are easily distinguished from the locals by their very sharp dorsal fins. Many of the Transients have been identified and named. The transients are exactly that. They can be found in Alaska, our waters and further south. Another group of Orca Whales are called "Offshores." They reside in deeper ocean waters and we don't know much about their habits as it is hard to keep track of them. The various groups (locals or southern residents, northern residents, transients and offshores) of Orca whales do not interact. When the northern residents are in our area, infrequently, the southern residents do not stay in the same area. They totally avoid transients at all times. It seems as though they have a treaty. There are many things that we humans can learn from these marvelous animals. They seem to live by rules. They don't fight. They seem to establish treaties. They share food. They do not attack humans or other non-food creatures. |
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