Baby orca adds to endangered killer whale population, Researchers made a surprising and encouraging discovery in British Columbia this week: a new baby orca among the endangered Southern Resident killer whale population in the Pacific Northwest.
“The calf, designated as L122, was spotted alongside mother L91 by NOAA scientists and colleagues near Sooke, British Columbia,” NOAA Fisheries West Coast announced on Facebook. “L122 is the fifth new baby to come into the population since December 2014.”
That is encouraging, since none of the calves born in 2013 and 2014 survived, according to the Center for Whale Research, which has been conducting annual photo-identification studies of the Southern Resident killer whale population for 40 years. The greatest number of baby orcas born in a year was nine, in 1977.
“We hope this year’s ‘baby-boom’ represents a turn-around in what has been a negative population trend in recent years,” the CWR wrote.
The Southern Resident killer whales are an iconic species in the Pacific Northwest, spending summer and fall months in Washington’s San Juan Islands and Puget Sound, feeding on salmon. The population is in the 80s, according to NOAA Fisheries.
The newest member of the L pod was discovered Monday by researchers while conducting aerial measurements of the endangered Southern Resident killer whale population, using sophisticated hexacopter from the research vessel Orca.
The mother and baby and other L pod whales spent the afternoon and evening in Haro Strait ‘fishing,’ and were joined by J and K pod members in an assemblage that stretched over dozens of square miles in the eastern Strait of Juan de Fuca and Haro Strait,” CWR reported.
The baby is the first for 20-year-old L91, incidentally.
“The calf, designated as L122, was spotted alongside mother L91 by NOAA scientists and colleagues near Sooke, British Columbia,” NOAA Fisheries West Coast announced on Facebook. “L122 is the fifth new baby to come into the population since December 2014.”
That is encouraging, since none of the calves born in 2013 and 2014 survived, according to the Center for Whale Research, which has been conducting annual photo-identification studies of the Southern Resident killer whale population for 40 years. The greatest number of baby orcas born in a year was nine, in 1977.
“We hope this year’s ‘baby-boom’ represents a turn-around in what has been a negative population trend in recent years,” the CWR wrote.
The Southern Resident killer whales are an iconic species in the Pacific Northwest, spending summer and fall months in Washington’s San Juan Islands and Puget Sound, feeding on salmon. The population is in the 80s, according to NOAA Fisheries.
The newest member of the L pod was discovered Monday by researchers while conducting aerial measurements of the endangered Southern Resident killer whale population, using sophisticated hexacopter from the research vessel Orca.
The mother and baby and other L pod whales spent the afternoon and evening in Haro Strait ‘fishing,’ and were joined by J and K pod members in an assemblage that stretched over dozens of square miles in the eastern Strait of Juan de Fuca and Haro Strait,” CWR reported.
The baby is the first for 20-year-old L91, incidentally.
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