By Leslie Kelly
Special to the Journal
The baby orca that was found dead on the west side of Vancouver Island on Dec. 29 is not a member of the J-pod or L-pod, Michael Harris, executive director of the Pacific Whale Watch Association, confirmed Monday, Jan. 4.
The whale was a female transient whale, not a member of the Southern resident population of orcas that frequent Puget Sound waters.
“Nothing is absolute until we get the results of the DNA tests back,” Harris said. “And that will take months. But we are pretty confident that this calf was a transient.”
He said they made comparisons of a photo of the dead calf to the group’s catalogue and found no shot that matched. He added that there are as many as 500 transient whales that swim up and down the coast.
Although a determination of how the whale died won’t come until the DNA results do, Harris said there was no trauma to the whale.
“Right now the Department of Fisheries and Oceans in Canada believe it died due to an infection,” he said. “There was no trauma. It was not attacked and we can safely say it had nothing to do with any military activity in the area or ship strike.”
Whale advocates worried that the dead calf might have been one of the eight new babies born over the last year to the J-Pod or L-pod group of killer whales in the Puget Sound waters.
“Baby whales often die,” he said. “Their mortality rate is about 50 percent. Sometimes it’s just not a viable calf.”
Sometimes, too, calves get separated from their pods and encounter turbulent surf that can lead to their deaths.
Harris said there were five calves born this year in the J-pod and three were born to the L-pod. On average it takes 14 years for a female whale to mature and produce her first calf. Females will give birth about four or five times over their lifespan.
Harris said people can help with the survival rate of baby orca calves by continuing to work on salmon recovery.
“We need to get these fish going again,” he said, mentioning chinook specifically. “In the years where the salmon numbers go up, the number of babies go up.”
Harris said that an abundance of chinook salmon for the fish-eating orcas has been the key to the recent population boom. According to PWWA’s website, J54, the newest member of the J-Pod’s baby boom, was first seen by whale watchers near San Juan Island and is the second offspring of 22-year-old J28.
The association said the baby boomlet is the largest since nine calves were born in 1977. The southern resident orcas are listed as endangered but their population this year is now tallied at 84, he said.
In December 2014, an orca from the Southern resident population was found dead near Comox, carrying a full-term female calf.
Necropsy results determined she died due to complications from the pregnancy.
San Juan County regularly receives funding for salmon recovery projects, and is currently looking for project proposals for the Salmon Recovery Funding Board 2016 grant funding cycles.
Private citizens, non-profit organizations, local, state, and tribal governments located in the San Juan Water Resources Inventory Area can apply for the grants, which covers the San Juan Islands and adjacent waters.
In 2015, San Juan County received funding for multiple projects, including $492,500 for the Cascade Creek Acquisition on Orcas Island, Friends of the San Juans received $91,260 for a salt marsh restoration feasibility study in Mud Bay, Sucia Island, Long Live the Kings received $196,383 for the ecology of resident Chinook in the San Juan Islands, and $172,176 went to Friends of the San Juans for Forage Fish Spawning Habitat Rehabilitation on Shaw and Orcas Islands.
Deadlines for proposal letters of intent is Feb. 12. Contact the coordinator Byron Rot for information at 360-370-7593, byronr@sanjuanco.com
