Sea Change
For five decades, the Center for Whale Research’s staff has witnessed profound transformations in the Southern Resident orca population. In this Q & A, we examine some history, the current seascape, and what lies ahead.
CWR’s Dave Ellifrit took this left-side shot of the Southern Resident orcas’ oldest member, L25, on June 24, 2022 (Encounter #35).
Photograph was taken under Center for Whale Research Federal Permits NMFS #21238 / DFO SARA 388.
from the SCIENCE Desk
Sea Change Q & A
Center for Whale Research staff answer questions about some of the most dramatic—positive and negative—changes they’ve experienced during their decades of studying and observing the Southern Resident (SRKW) orca population.
Q. How much has the Salish Sea habitat changed during the five decades of the ORCA SURVEY?
A. Ken Balcomb: The chinook runs have been fished out. At the beginning of the ORCA SURVEY, there were two million Chinook salmon caught in Washington State, and probably at least that number caught in British Columbia destined for Salish Sea rivers (WDFW 1980 Annual Report). The Chinook salmon distribution and migratory patterns have changed, and this has changed the SRKWs’ foraging patterns; they follow the fish after all: NO FISH, NO BLACKFISH. Shipping traffic has greatly increased in size and number, increasing low-frequency noise pollution and contamination. Climate has changed and has warmed ocean conditions. And the human occupation of the regional environment has greatly increased.
At the beginning of the ORCA SURVEY, there were two million Chinook salmon caught in Washington State, and probably at least that number caught in British Columbia destined for Salish Sea rivers (WDFW 1980 Annual Report). The Chinook salmon distribution and migratory patterns have changed, and this has changed the SRKWs’ foraging patterns; they follow the fish, after all: NO FISH, NO BLACKFISH.
— Kenneth C. BALCOMB, CWR Founder/Principal Investigator
Q. How have the threats to the Southern Resident population changed during the past five decades?
A. Ken Balcomb: The threat of extinction of Southern Resident orcas (SRKW) primary food supply has not improved in recent times. It has worsened and probably will not significantly improve in the near future under the current political/economic regime.
Q. Sonar and weapons used during U.S. and Canadian Navy exercises, inside and on the periphery of the Salish Sea, were previously deadly to L112 in 2012. Ten years later, are naval activities less of a threat to the Southern Residents?
A. Ken Balcomb: Sonar initiates a flight response in marine mammals (avoidance), particularly with exposure to high-intensity military sonar. The orcas’ terrifying responses sometimes lead to lethal results (stranding, brain trauma, social dispersal). This threat will not get better. The Navy has initiated awareness programs for their personnel, but awareness and sensitivity to the issue must be learned. Accidents will continue to happen.
Hope for the SRKWs can be found in matrilines like the J37s, J41s, L77s, and L94s—matrilines with a youngish mom who has given birth to at least two calves, with at least one being a female.
— Dave ELLIFRIT, CWR Senior Staff/Photo ID Specialist
Q. There’s much excitement about the SRKWs two new calves, J59 and K45. But this is a far cry from 1977 when there were nine births: J17, J18, K14, L41, L48, L53, L54, L55, and L57. How positive a sign is the 2022 births for the population?
A. Dave Ellifrit: A couple of baby whales are better than no baby whales at all, but . . . these calves need to grow up with enough food to become reproductive members of their community. We gained a couple of calves but lost a reproductively aged male this year. The population will not grow and prosper if we keep trading new calves for whales that can reproduce. Many calves don’t make it to adulthood, and some SRKWs that do, don’t live up to their reproductive potential. Several of our SRKW females have had a son or two and then all but stopped having calves. There seems to be a big hurdle between the firstborn son and the next calf. Hope for the SRKWs can be found in matrilines like the J37s, J41s, L77s, and L94s—matrilines with a youngish mom who has given birth to at least two calves, with at least one being a female.
Q. What key SRKW social structure features have CWR researchers identified during the past few years using drones, things that you couldn’t see at eye level?
A. Dr. Michael Weiss: We’ve been able to quantify just how tactile these animals are with each other and show that these touchy-feely interactions don’t just occur between close maternal relatives. The degree to which they keep in physical contact with one another is really remarkable and probably says something about how important social bonding is to them. It may also eventually give us insight into possible disease transmission in the population. We’ve also been able to see that whales make “friends” with individuals of similar age and the same sex and that whales of both sexes do less social interacting as they get older. This mirrors some patterns we see in humans and apes and, again, may have implications both for how we understand social bonding and structure in whales and the conservation of the population. We’re now really interested in starting to link these social interactions to health and demography, but this takes several years of data collection.
The degree to which they keep in physical contact with one another is really remarkable and probably says something about how important social bonding is to them. It may also eventually give us insight into possible disease transmission in the population.
— Dr. Michael WEISS, CWR Research Director
Q. What are some of the significant SRKW behavioral changes you’ve observed during your 25 years documenting the orcas?
A. Mark Malleson: I started observing the Southern Residents in the summer of 1997, and for many years (at least a decade and a half), they were quite predictable in their pattern. J pod was around the San Juan Islands reliably starting in April and almost daily doing their circuit up Haro Strait, then to the mouth of the Fraser River via Swanson Channel/Active Pass or occasionally Boundary Pass/East Point. They would then either return to the west side of San Juan Island (SJI), typically inside 24 hours by coming down Boundary Pass or take the long route via Rosario Strait. J2/Granny typically led the way with J1/Ruffles nearby. They would spend a lot of time foraging along San Juan Island, shuffling down and up and down the west side. A big ebb current would carry them to the bottom end of SJI at Salmon Bank and/or out toward Hein Bank. The SRKWs would then wait for the big flood to make their foray north for the Fraser. Every few days, sometimes a week or more, they’d take the ebb out west in the Strait of Juan de Fuca, disappearing for a few days, perhaps looking for the rest of the clan (Ks and/or Ls). But they typically wouldn’t be gone long. Toward the end of May, we would expect the Ks and Ls to return from the open ocean. We could predict their arrival within a few days during the last week of May. They typically arrived through the Strait of Juan de Fuca Strait but occasionally took the inside route, coming down via Johnstone Strait and Georgia Strait. In the last decade or so, most years, J pod have been a lot less predictable and the Ks and Ls even more so with no sighting of the Js in the Salish Sea for weeks or even months some years. The Ks and Ls have been returning way later than usual, with some members of the clan not making an appearance in the inside waters until late summer/early fall; they’re spending a lot more time out west near Swiftsure Bank.
Q. Have the SRKWs altered their behavior around an ill community member or when the population experienced a loss? Can you sight an example from decades?
A. Dave Ellifrit: I personally have not seen much in the way of behavior changes of SRKWs around sick pod mates, although I’m sure they eventually slow down to let ailing whales catch up to the group. The only time I’ve seen an adverse reaction to a sick whale was in 1994 when an emaciated adult male, L42, tried to approach another adult male, L38. Upon L42’s approach, L38 did a big cartwheel . . . and then L42 moved slowly away again. This was the day when another adult male, K17, also showed up emaciated. Perhaps L38 knew something was up and didn’t want sick whales around him.
Q. DNA allowed scientists to identify paternal links between Southern Resident orcas. Are other scientific advancements on the horizon that will reveal unexpected things about the SRKWs?
A. Dr. Michael Weiss: I think the really exciting advances in the next few years are going to come from integrating long-term data on the population with novel data collection techniques. I think aerial observation is clearly a game changer, but several research groups are also exploring what we can learn from animal-borne sensors and physiological measures of health. It’s less glamorous, but I also think the statistical tools we have now for unraveling patterns from messy data will also be crucial for us going forward. It’s hard to say what we’ll find (that’s the point!), but as we combine our new knowledge of genetic structure, social relationships, and physiology with long-term information on population demographics, I think we’ll learn a lot more about what makes the whales tick and how that relates to their conservation.
The Ks and Ls have been returning way later than usual, with some members of the clan not making an appearance in the inside waters until late summer/early fall; they’re spending a lot more time out west near Swiftsure Bank.
— Mark MALLESON, CWR Field Biologist
Q. The SRKW community has experienced many losses during the past 46 years. Are there one or two deaths that stand out more than others for their impact on the SRKWs? What were the consequences?
A. Dave Ellifrit: While there have been losses that have affected me personally more, it was the loss of certain young reproductive-aged females that seemed to cause the downfall of certain matrilines. The death of L51 and L67 doomed the survival of their respective matrilines, and, with the exception of L88 of the L2s, both the L2 and the L9 matrilines have now died out. The loss of J20 in 1998 and then her one daughter, J32, in 2014 has reduced the size of the J10 matriline. J20’s little sister, J22, only had two sons, of which just one survived. Every reproductive-aged female is important, and the loss of just one can have a major impact on the long-term survival of its matriline.
Q. As someone who has repeatedly seen the SRKWs in Haro Strait along San Juan Island’s west side, what changes have you noticed in the whales’ SJI “west side shuffle?” Why is it described as a “shuffle?”
A. Katie Jones: It’s very noticeable that the whales do not spend as much time here as they used to. I remember many years of sitting on the west side of San Juan Island at the Lime Kiln lighthouse watching the whales go by, sometimes several times per day. I think that may be why many referred to their movements as the “west side shuffle.” The whales would go up the island, reach a certain point, and decide they wanted to turn around and go back down the island (and all the whales would do this at about the same time). The whales still do the “westside shuffle” to a certain extent when they’re in the area, but because they haven’t spent as much time in the inland waters of the Salish Sea in recent years, it’s a less common occurrence.
Q. You were with most of J, K, and L pods near Victoria, British Columbia (August 13), when a commercial fishing vessel sank and spilled thousands of gallons of diesel oil in Haro Strait. Have there been other occasions when you’ve been as afraid for the Southern Residents?
A. Mark Malleson: I am always concerned for the Southern Residents, especially when they are gone for months in the winter searching for food. They can probably compete with sport fishers for enough salmon but not against the extensive commercial fishing activity. It’s been tough to see the gillnetters off San Juan Island in late summer/fall hauling in tons of salmon in front of the foraging SRKWs and commercial fishing going on near Swiftsure Bank, also in core SRKW habitat.
There have been reports, fortunately, nothing recent, of commercial longline fishermen taking gunshots at Northern Resident killer whales that depredate their lines. Hopefully, the SRKWs don’t learn this depredation behavior, and the fishermen’s disrespect toward Resident killer whales will become a thing of the past.
The military activity near the Olympic Peninsula and in the Strait of Juan de Fuca obviously disrupts the clan’s well-being. We’ve only documented a few events, with the worst being active sonar emitted from the USS Shoup in May of 2003 off San Juan Island among J pod. More recently, in the Spring of 2012, L112 was found stranded on the outer coast of Washington State with evidence of blunt force trauma. Was it from an unexploded ordnance? Unfortunately, a lot goes on in the ocean that we can’t prove or observe.
It’s very noticeable that the whales do not spend as much time here as they used to. I remember many years of sitting on the west side of San Juan Island at the Lime Kiln lighthouse watching the whales go by, sometimes several times per day.
— Katie JONES, Education/Outreach Manager
