J-Pod Southern Resident Killer Whale Movement

How vessel traffic, chinook salmon, water quality, climate, and the navy impact how J-Pod moves throughout the Salish Sea

Interactive Map

J-Pod sighting data was provided by OrcaNetwork. All sighting coordinates are approximated by placing them close to the location they were collected at

Audio: Recording of J-Pod with J59 (a new calf). Audio from ORCASOUND collected on 3/1/2022

The Southern Resident Killer Whales

The Southern Resident Killer Whales are an ecotype of killer whales. Although killer whales are genetically distinct based on the geographic location they are found in, they remain similar enough to be a singular species (Shields, 2019). The concept of ecotypes is that there are distinct forms of certain animals within a species that allow them to better thrive in their habitat (Allaby, M, 1991). Ecotypes are genetically distinct and do not interbreed, interact, or compete. There are ten ecotypes of killer whales, five of which live in the Northern Hemisphere. This can further be broken up in places such as the Salish Sea, where there are three separate ecotypes: the residents, the transients, and the offshores. The residents in the Salish Sea are broken into subcategories of northern and southern residents. The residents are fish eaters, primarily salmon. The residents eat about 95% salmon, with Chinook salmon making up 70% of their diets. The residents will also eat some chum salmon but will not eat pink salmon, even in years with low Chinook numbers (Shields, 2019). 

SRKW numbers are in decline, with the current population count being only 73 individuals (“Southern Resident Orca Population,” 2022). However, the largest population viability concern lies with the animals that are able to breed in this population. Balcomb (2019), suggests that this pod contains as few as five breeding females and one viable male.. Balcomb suggests that many of the existing killer whales are aging out of reproductive age or have not reproduced successfully in the last five to ten years. 50% of SRKW females that become pregnant lose their calf before it is born. If a calf survives birth, it only has a 50% survival rate in the first year of life; low abundance of prey is causing high mortality amongst all SRKWs (Balcomb, Personal communication as recorded in Peterson, 2019).

Members of the L4 matriline cruise by Vashon Island on Nov. 9. (Photo by Mark and Maya Sears | NOAA permit 21348).  https://www.vashonbeachcomber.com/news/rare-southern-resident-orca-superpod-visits-vashon/ 

J-Pod & Tragedy

The Southern Resident population consists of three familial pods: J, K, and L. The J, K, and L pods do interact and interbreed with each other. Sometimes all three pods come together in what is called a super pod. This map is focused on the movements of J-Pod, arguably the most well-known SRKW pod.

In the past few years, J-Pod experienced attention in 2018 due to J35, a member of the SRKWs, losing her calf a few minutes after giving birth. J35 carried her dead calf for 17 days and over 1,600 km. This display of grief was energy-consuming for J35, as she would sometimes drop the calf’s body and have to swim down to retrieve it, sometimes hundreds of times a day (Knoth, 2019). This behavior has been seen in other individuals in multiple examples, with mothers carrying their dead calves for days or weeks. In some cases, the calf is big enough that it covers the mother’s blow hole, meaning that she has to drop and retrieve the calf every time she takes a breath (Armstrong and Mitchell, 2021). 

J-Pod also experienced the loss of 3.5-year-old J50, Scarlet in September 2018. Scarlet for a long time symbolized hope for the SRKWs because she was lively and playful. However, in August 2018, it seemed that her health began declining. NOAA attempted to administer antibiotics and food to J50 to help improve her health, but it was an effort that came too late, and J50 passed away (NOAA, 2019).

Salish Sea orca J50, or “Scarlet” has been pronounced dead by researchers tracking her. Image: Salish Sea Orcas/Facebook

The Root Cause

The SRKWs’ population took a direct hit during the live capture era, as many of the whales caught in British Columbia were SRKWs; during these captures, over thirty whales were caught, many of them younger individuals. The most famous SRKW in captivity was the original Shamu, who was caught in the Salish Sea as a calf. Shamu was bought and transferred to SeaWorld after keepers realized she was not compatible with other killer whales in a Seattle Aquarium tank. Shamu lived in captivity for six years. However, they continued to use the stage name for subsequent killer whales. The last remaining SRKW in captivity is Lolita at Miami Sea Aquarium, where she is kept alone in a tiny tank. Many, including Balcomb, have lobbied for Lolita’s release; even National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) recognizes her as part of the endangered SRKWs. However, she remains in captivity (Shields, 2019). In the first week of October 2022, Miami Seaquarium announced that Lolita was under continuous supervision due to her declining health. At the age of 56, she has recently been sicker, survives in poor living conditions, and is fighting off an infection (Insignares et al., 2022). 

The original Shamu Orca Sea World San Diego 1967 is a photograph by Monterey County Historical Society which was uploaded on July 13th, 2013.

A past diver talks about what it was like to catch killer whales in the Salish Sea.

Video: Blackfish

The Four Lower Snake River Dams

With lowered populations from the capture era and the decline in Chinook salmon populations, the SRKWs are struggling. The Chinook salmon population is decreasing partially due to four dams on the lower Snake River. While Chinook are able to spawn, the problems occur when the newly hatched salmon try to head toward the ocean. If there were no dams on the Snake River, it would take the Chinook about a week to travel the entire distance to the ocean. However, the dams cause this journey to last between four to six weeks. This means that Chinook smolt are past the biological point of being able to become saltwater fish when they reach the ocean if they even make it. Before they get to the ocean, they must pass through the reservoirs the dams create, leaving them more susceptible to predation as well as high water temperatures. Collectively, this has resulted in a dwindling Chinook salmon population⏤the SRKW’s staple food source (Peterson, 2019). 

Many West Coast Chinook salmon stocks migrate far into the Pacific before returning to West Coast rivers as adults. Several of those returning stocks, such as those from the Columbia River system, overlap with the range of Southern Resident killer whales as they return to the Northwest. Graphic: NOAA Fisheries

Declining Health

The lack of fish for the SRKWs is concerning, as it is clear that they are experiencing food shortages. Adult SRKWs need at least ten Chinook salmon every day to get the vital nutrients they need to survive (Hall, 2021). These whales are much skinnier than other populations. The SRKWs often have visible ribs, and in extreme cases, their skull can be visible when the whale loses so much blubber that from an aerial view, the outline of the skull is visible (Fearnbach et al., 2018). Nutritionally poor females can still get pregnant; however, if a female experiences prey scarcity during gestation, her calf has a higher risk of mortality. 

Aerial photographs from SR3 showing southern resident orca J27 — or Blackberry — in 2018 (left) and 2022 (right) display the whale’s weight loss over four years due to low quantities of salmon available in the Puget Sound, which are southern resident killer whales’ primary food source

Due to a lack of food, SRKWs more commonly mobilize lipid reserves in their blubber. However, their blubber contains high concentrations of Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs). These POPs include toxins such as Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT),  Polychlorinated biphenyl  (PCBs), and Polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) procured by the consumption of their prey, which also contains these pollutants (Shields, 2019). Because these toxins are lipophilic, they are passed from prey to predator and dissolve in fatty tissue, which is why there is such accumulation in the blubber (Manteufel, 2019). These toxins are not only in the blubber of the adult killer whales, but they also contaminate the milk that the calves are receiving from their mothers; about 60% of a mother’s  POP load is offloaded to her offspring during lactation. POPs become more harmful to adults when they need to metabolize their blubber to supplement their food intake (Shields, 2019).

Water quality of the Salish Sea watershed. Water quality near Seattle is marginal. Water quality where Chinook salmon can be found is also marginal.

Water quality is classified in five classes. The darker green is excellent, meaning that it is the best water quality. The lighter green is good, it is fairly clean. Yellow is fair, meaning it is suitable but not ideal. Red is marginal, which means that is the dirtiest and least suitable for killer whales. Dark grey is no data.

Chinook Presence shows tributaries where the Chinook salmon are present or thought to be present. The Chinook presence does not show all of the area Chinook are present, it simply displays that they are not only in the more open waters of the Salish Sea.

Human Interactions

Current problems for the SRKWs are exacerbated through direct human interactions. There is abundant vessel traffic in the SRKW’s designated critical habitat. All types of vessels from whale watching boats, cargo ships, and even military vessels can disrupt the foraging behavior of the SRKWs. The SRKW’s food is already scarce, so when vessels disturb and deter them, and their prey, while they are able to find food it continues to add to the starvation they are facing (Lusseau, D., et. al., 2009). 

Orca L87 plies the Haro Strait as a ship approaches. Killer whales must raise their voices to be heard, and they forage less in the presence of vessels. Noise disturbance is identified by scientists as one of the three main threats to the survival of the endangered southern residents that frequent Puget Sound. (Capt. Alan Niles / Maya's Legacy Whale Watching)

Another concern is the renewal of the U.S. Navy’s right to harm marine mammals in the Pacific Northwest during training and testing. The previous agreement between the U.S. Navy and NOAA was that the Navy could not commit more than two takes a year. However, in the renewed agreement, they can commit up to 51 takes a year. The Navy uses areas of the SRKW’s range to test sonar and bombs, which can not only injure or kill whales if they are in the vicinity but also creates distressing noise pollution. The Navy suggests that its incidental takes of SRKWs would be in the form of behavioral disturbance only and that they would not cause injury or death of SRKWs. However, these behavioral disturbances may impact both SRKW feeding and breeding, essential behaviors to their continued survival (Duhamel, 2020).

Boat traffic is very abundant in the Salish Sea, and is concentrated in the SRKW's critical habitat.

Vessel Traffic is displayed where the most concentrated routes are red and les frequented roots are yellow. All three types of vessel traffic share similar routes and mostly overlap each other.

Acknowledgements

A collaboration between The Magic Moon Girl, Orca Network, and College of the Atlantic

Cover photo credit: Madison Meyer

Special thanks to Esri

For further questions contact themagicmoongirl@gmail.com

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J-Pod sighting data provided through OrcaNetwork

All sighting coordinates are approximated by placing them close to the location they were collected at

J-Pod sighting data was provided by OrcaNetwork. All sighting coordinates are approximated by placing them close to the location they were collected at