UPDATE, Oct. 11, 2024
Although the newest calf in L pod has not yet been declared missing or deceased by the Center for Whale Research, it is hard to imagine a good outcome from the description by CWR’s field biologist Mark Malleson, who observed K and L pods on Oct. 5 at Swiftsure Bank near the entrance to the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Information released by CWR this morning was met with expressions of grief across social media.
Among one group of whales in the Oct. 5 encounter, Mark spotted what he thought was the mother-calf pair, L90 (Ballina) and her new calf, L128. But upon closer examination, he realized it was another female, L83, a 34-year-old named Moonlight. The calf was indeed L128 but in an emaciated condition.
“L90 was nearby, foraging, as L83 approached Mike 1 (the research vessel) with the emaciated calf draped across her rostrum, Mark wrote in the encounter report. “As she carried the calf down the side of the boat, Mark’s heart sank — he was certain the calf had stopped breathing. L83 jiggled the calf, as if desperately trying to revive it. As she continued past the stern of Mike 1, Mark thought he saw the calf take a faint breath and return to her side. Emotionally drained from the sighting, Mark decided at 1323 that it was time to end the encounter and make the ~60-nautical-mile journey back to Victoria Harbour.”
The next day, Mark returned to the area with another CWR biologist, Joe Zelwietro, to observe K and L pods, which were spread out. They did not spot L83, L90 or the calf L128 during the encounter, although the whales could have been nearby but out of view, according to their report.
“We, therefore, are not yet categorizing L128 as missing or deceased,” states a note at the end of the encounter report for Oct. 5. “More data is needed to confirm this young whale’s fate. This population needs every new addition it can get, and the loss of a calf is always tragic. For L90 in particular, the loss of her first documented live-born calf would be a major blow.”
Expressions of grief and heartbreak are being shared across social media. As Orca Network posted on Facebook: “Today’s news is extremely difficult to hear, but we are grateful to the Center for Whale Research for sharing this information with the community and for showing incredible respect in their operations around mother and calf. We will look for more information from CWR in the weeks to come, but for now we join a grieving community and express our deep sorrow at this heartbreaking news.”
Oct. 4, 2024
The orca census in-depth
Three deaths and one birth among the southern resident killer whales have been documented over the past year. Those are the numbers included in the official census report submitted this week by the Center for Whale Research.
The total population of the three southern resident pods drops from 75 to 73 for the census year, which runs from July 1, 2023, to July 1, 2024. But a new birth in September — after the census period — brings today’s actual population to 74.
The one birth in the census report was a male calf, designated J60. He was first seen last year on Christmas day but went missing a month later — so he became listed as both a birth and a death in the same census year. The other reported deaths involved K34, a 22-year-old male named Cali, who was last seen in July 2023, and L85, a 33-year-old male named Mystery, who was last spotted in November.
In July, at the end of the census year, I reported on the population status of the southern resident orcas in Our Water Ways, using the best information available. The blog post describes the concerns expressed at the time for the missing whale Mystery when there was still some hope that he might be found alive.
The census report was submitted to the National Marine Fisheries Service, also known as NOAA Fisheries, with a brief summary posted to CWR’s website.
A calf’s short life
Questions of parentage are likely to continue for J60, the newborn who did not live long enough to get a name.
“J60’s short life was strange and tumultuous,” states the summary of the census by the Center for Whale Research. “First confirmed by Mark and Maya Sears in Puget Sound on December 26, 2023, J60 was initially photographed traveling alongside J40 (Suttles). However, J40 was not visibly pregnant in late 2023. When CWR first encountered the calf on January 3, 2024, he was travelling with J16 (Slick), a post-reproductive female.”
If both of those females were just “babysitting” the newborn calf, where was the mother?
On Jan. 7, the calf was seen swimming alongside J42 (Echo), who happens to be J16s daughter. While J42 did appear to be pregnant at one time in late 2023, she was seen to be not pregnant when observers photographed her breaching (rising out of the water) on Dec. 21, right before the baby was born. So J42 was not the mother either.
“The only other J pod female that was heavily pregnant in late 2023 was J46 (Star),” the summary continues. “We, therefore, assign J46 as the ‘probable’ mother of J60 in our dataset.”
J46 or Star is a 15-year-old orca. It appears the calf never bonded with his mother or any other whale, according to Michael Weiss, research director for CWR. “The calf never put on weight, so we don’t think he was nursing,” he added, although it is conceivable that something was physically or metabolically wrong with the calf.
“It’s unclear whether this was a case of calf rejection, an inability of the mother to properly nurse the calf with other females attempting to help, or kidnapping,” according to the summary. “J60 did not appear to be putting on weight in later encounters and was not seen with J pod when encountered on January 27, 2024. J60, therefore, likely died sometime in early or mid-January.”
Newest calf doing well so far
In mid-September a new calf was born to L90, a 31-year-old female named Ballena. The birth caused quite a stir among orca observers, since this somewhat older orca had never been seen with a calf before, although she had been suspected of being pregnant and having several miscarriages in the past.
At 31, Ballena is considered the “oldest first-time mother” ever seen among the southern residents, according to a note from the Center for Whale Research, which confirmed the birth on Sept. 15. Researchers with CWR observed Ballena two days before without a calf, so that makes Sept. 14 the most likely date of birth. See notes of the encounter.
From the first encounter with CWR biologists, Ballena was keeping her distance from the humans who had a federal permit to observe the animals up close. She also had separated from the rest of her pod. The following day, Sept. 16, the researchers caught up with them on the west side of San Juan Island.
“We got on scene at 0930 about a mile off Hannah Heights,” according to notes from the encounter. “L90 and L128 were tight together, as one would expect, and pointed slowly up Haro Strait. Despite early hopes of other whales being around, L90 and L128 were the only two SRs (southern residents) seen in the strait….
“We attempted one photo-ID pass, but L90 turned away from us before we could even get within 200 hundred yards. It was clear she was not ready for anyone to be close yet, so we stopped trying and took proof of presence photos from a distance while we flew over them. We were able to get good enough shots with the drone to confirm a right eyepatch, should we need to.
“The calf was also seen nursing, which is good news,” the report continues. “L90 and L128 turned northwest and neared the (Canadian) border so we landed the drone and ended the encounter at 1011.”
The sex of the calf has not yet been determined.
Ballena, which means “whale” in Spanish, has had a tough life. She is the last surviving offspring of L26, named Baba. Before her mother died in 2013, she had already lost her three older siblings. Following their deaths, her only living relative was her nephew, L92 or Crewser, who died in 2018.
Back in October 1997, Ballena along with her mother and siblings were among the 19 killer whales that visited Dyes Inlet between Bremerton and Silverdale. The whales remained in the inlet for a month, apparently refusing to pass under the Warren Avenue Bridge across Port Washington Narrows, the exit route. On a rainy day in November, the whales left the inlet, helped along by researchers in a boat.
Monika Wieland Shields, director of Orca Behavior Institute, provides her perspective on the mother-calf relationship of Ballena and her new baby, along with other observations, such as the vocalizations picked up on area hydrophones at the time. Monika notes that some people have been worried, because Ballena chose to separate from her pod, at least at first. She says people should not jump to conclusions.
“Here’s an alternative scenario to consider,” she writes. “What if L90, who perhaps thought she would never have a calf of her own, is taking this time to enjoy the company of and bond with her new little one, without the frenzy of other whales around? Maybe this isn’t something scary, but something beautiful. I don’t know if this is true, but I also don’t know that it’s untrue. There’s nothing we can do but bear witness to her unfolding story. But, again, I trust that she’s making the best decisions she can for both her and her calf.”
Population trends not so good
The Center for Whale Research ended its summary of the 2024 census with a sad note about population trends. After NOAA listed the southern resident killer whales as endangered in 2005, the agency established criteria for removing the population from the Endangered Species List. One goal within the recovery plan was a population growth rate averaging 2.3 percent per year for at least 28 years.
“However,” says CWR’s statement, “in the last decade, every census showing population growth has been followed by a subsequent decline. The Center for Whale Research’s data clearly shows that survival rates are closely tied to Chinook salmon abundance, and there cannot be an effective recovery of the SRKW population without an increase in this crucial resource. Without sufficient prey abundance, the Southern Residents will simply not be able to sustain population growth.”
A new scientific article authored by 17 killer whale experts suggests that if the population decline of southern resident orcas continues, their extinction will occur within the full view of scientists and a society unwilling or unable to make changes.
“Preventing extinction is still possible but will require greater sacrifices on regional ocean use, urban development and land use practices than would have been the case had threats been mitigated even a decade earlier,” states the article published in the journal Communications Earth and Environment.
Scientists have been warning that mass extinctions are underway across the globe, especially among less-noticeable species that don’t get much public attention. This unnoticed loss of biodiversity, often occurring even before a species has been described by scientists, has been called the “dark extinction.” In contrast, the risks to southern resident killer whales have been well studied and documented, thus the end of the orca population would be considered a “bright extinction,” according to the authors of the paper.
Other examples of well-studied species lost to extinction are cited in the report. They include the baiji or Yangtze River dolphin, which underwent a precipitous decline in the 1980s and ‘90s before being declared functionally extinct in 2006, largely because of unsustainable fishing practices. The vaquita, a species of porpoise in the Gulf of Mexico, declined to an estimated nine animals by 2018, also because of fishing practices. North Atlantic right whales, numbering in the low hundreds, have been in decline because of vessel strikes and entanglements in fishing gear. In these cases, understanding the problem has not led to a solution.
For the southern residents, every individual whale is known, and the changing demographics are well documented.
“Depleted in the 1960s and 1970s by an unsustainable live-capture fishery for aquaria displays, the population has failed to recover due to a combination of sublethal and lethal stressors, including reduced availability and quality of Chinook salmon, its preferred prey; noise, which further reduces foraging efficiency; contaminant exposure, which is associated with decreased fecundity, increased calf mortality and other adverse effects; and vessel strikes,” the report says.
Chinook salmon, the orcas’ primary food, are themselves heavily depleted and struggling to maintain their own populations, let alone providing sufficient nutrition to the whales. Studies have shown that low years for salmon returns are associated with low reproduction and survival of the southern residents.
Computer models, including those described in the paper, predict that the southern resident population will continue to decline toward extinction without major changes. For example, according to the paper, a “slow recovery” rate described by the model assumes a 30 percent increase in available Chinook from today’s levels along with no climate change, no noise, no human-caused mortalities and a significant reduction in environmental contaminants. If half of those improvements could be attained, the population might “persist” at current levels, according to that model. Anything less is predicted to lead to varying rates of decline, as shown by several modeled scenarios.
Since the population of southern resident killer whales (SRKW) is relatively small, inbreeding may already be affecting the population’s ability to respond to a changing environment, according to the paper. As the population declines further, inbreeding will create greater problems.
While it may take extraordinary measures to prevent the extinction of small populations, actions taken elsewhere in the world “offer a useful roadmap to ensure survival and recovery of SRKW,” the authors say. For example, human intervention and ongoing vigilance helped restore California condors, black-footed ferrets, whooping cranes and mountain gorillas, among others described in the paper.
“While many species have been brought back from the brink through interventions such as captive breeding programs, SRKW recovery will require aggressive actions to protect and restore their habitat, which includes mitigating effects to both SRKWs and their primary prey, Chinook salmon…,” they argue.
“Salmon recovery is a crucial component of achieving SRKW recovery,” they say. “Although no salmon-recovery scenario alone resulted in a fully recovered SRKW population, all of the successful multi-threat mitigation scenarios included some ambitious salmon recovery scenario.”
What level of intervention?
The question of when to intervene to save the life of a single animal or to address health concerns across an entire endangered population still needs to be answered for the southern resident killer whales, according to Joe Gaydos, a wildlife veterinarian and science director for the SeaDoc Society. SeaDoc is a marine conservation program under the auspices of the University of California, Davis.
The issue came up this week at a meeting of experts who are helping to compile health records for each of the southern resident killer whales, he said. The large database of health information, now under development, could be used to track the conditions of individual whales over time or figure out trends for the entire population. The database includes a system of reporting and recalling health-assessment findings, field observations, photographs, test results, photogrammetry, necropsy reports and more. The structure of the database is in place and being populated with data, with some changes being contemplated.
Beyond increasing the salmon supply for the orcas, killer whale researchers and observers seem to be in general agreement that it would be valuable to share all sorts of information about the individual whales, Joe told me. Some details need to be worked out, but the goal is to share information more quickly among those who need it.
If a whale can be identified as sick or injured in time, some sort of aid or rescue could be possible, Joe noted. Such work has been done for other endangered populations throughout the world. Under what conditions a medical intervention would be warranted is something to be discussed further, he said.
Protocols used in 2018 allowed for hands-on treatment of a sick orca if the animal was away from the rest of its pod and capture would be minimally stressful to other whales. This was the guideline used when an emaciated 4-year-old female orca named Scarlet (J50) was under observation. For a wider discussion, check out the three-part series in the Encyclopedia of Puget Sound: “The orca docs: Can medical interventions help?”
Further discussions are needed among experts in the U.S. and Canada to work out agreements about when and how medical interventions might be the right approach, according to Joe, one of 17 authors on the extinction-risk paper. When endangered populations get small, every animal becomes important.
“Right now, it’s really going to be on a case-by-case basis,” he said. “But we probably need to sit down and line up what everybody is comfortable with.”
The criteria could be different, depending on the age and sex of the animal and the specific type of intervention, he said. Since females of reproductive age and younger are primary factors in population dynamics, they are likely to get a higher priority for treatment.
At the time of Scarlet’s death, diagnostic tools were rather minimal. Whale feces could be picked up from the water to test for pathogens and other health-related factors involving excretion. At the time, biologists were able to gather breath samples by driving a boat alongside a whale and dangling a pole with an attached petri dish over the swimming whale.
Now, remotely controlled aerial vehicles are used to take precise measurements of a whale’s size and shape to assess body condition. Drones can also fly over a whale to quickly grab a breath sample with far less intrusion for the whales.
Fecal samples can be used to test for various health indicators, including hormone levels, which can reveal stress from lack of food and determine whether a whale is pregnant.
“We have more tools than ever before to gather health information,” Joe said. “If an animal is hit by a propellor, we could use a drone with a thermal camera to check out its condition. We could also collect a breath sample to see if it has an infection in the lungs… We are not doing Civil War medicine anymore.”
Checking a whale’s condition is one thing, but what about a decision to administer a shot of antibiotics or vaccinate a group of whales to ward off a disease outbreak.
Medical experts have been concerned that a disease-causing pathogen, such as morbillivirus or bird flu, could wipe out a major part of the population, Joe said, but appropriate vaccines have not been developed or tested in killer whales. The issue remains under discussion, but until the effectiveness of a vaccine is understood, nobody can say how many animals would need to be vaccinated to prevent a widespread outbreak.
One issue under study involves parasites that can infect the whales. Researchers know that young whales face difficult periods right after birth and again at 2 to 3 years old when they are weaned off mother’s milk. In this second period, young whales tend to grow thin, increasing their risk of death. One explanation could be that the young whale has not yet learned to hunt effectively, Joe said, but another possibility is that it is picking up parasites when first eating fish. In fact, both situations may be occurring, he said, possibly hitting the young whales with a one-two punch.
New genetic tests are being developed with the goal of determining the level of parasitic infection, and studies are being planned to test for parasitic loads before and after young whales start eating fish. One idea for intervention is to treat young whales with medications to eliminate parasites.
Using modern medicine to help the whales cannot solve the critical problem of food supply, but a declining orca population demands a wider discussion about all the options, including medical intervention, most experts agree.
Not to forget Lolita/Tokitae
Although not really part of the southern resident census, we must not forget that Lolita, or Tokitae (as she was called by many Northwest residents) was from this same population. The female orca was just 3 to 6 years old when she was captured in Puget Sound’s Penn Cove on Aug. 8, 1970, and taken to Miami Seaquarium in Florida. She died there Aug. 18 of last year (within the latest census period).
“Her gentle nature, her charisma, and her remarkable resilience seemed unwavering despite the deplorable conditions she spent the majority of her life living in,” said Katie Jones, operations manager for the Center for Whale Research, in a tribute to Tokitae.
Katie also discusses the experience of coincidentally being on the water and observing the whales in Tokitae’s pod when the researchers received the tragic news of her death.
Having a southern resident orca in captivity made it a little tricky to give out the exact population through my many years of reporting on the whales. Should I talk about the total number without counting Lolita/Tokitae? Sometimes I would give the number of southern residents in the wild with this addition: “not counting Lolita/Tokitae who resides in captivity in a Miami aquarium.”
For the last several months of her life, plans were moving forward to bring the orca back to Puget Sound to live in a net pen, with some people hoping for eventual release into her home territory. Any moves would have required a series of government permits.
Proponents of her release had struggled for years to convince skeptics and opponents that returning Lolita/Tokitae to Puget Sound would be the right thing to do. And for years, Seaquarium owners continually rejected the idea. Then in March, just five months before she died of renal failure, the Seaquarium announced that plans were moving forward to bring the whale back to Puget Sound. Her death came as a shock to many. After her death, her ashes were scattered on the waters off the Lummi reservation near Bellingham during a traditional tribal burial ceremony.
Washington Post writer Caitlin Gibson relates the lifelong saga of Lolita/Tokitae in her engaging story “The Call of Tokitae.”