SEATTLE — When tourists travel to Seattle, it is common for them to enjoy views of the Space Needle and the downtown skyline from Puget Sound.
It’s a itinerary that a pod of newly arrived killer whales appears to be following as well.
We were delighted by three killer whales that had never before been recorded in the Seattle area Whale watchers With several visits off downtown in the past month. They also strolled past other beaches in the area.
“People… are all very happy to see this,” said Hong Ming Cheng, who photographs whales in his spare time. It took him 10 hours of driving to find the mysterious capsule. “It was epic.”
Researchers keep detailed records Killer whales that frequent the Salish Seawaters between Washington State and Canada, by their fins and saddle spots – the gray markings on their sides.
So it was a surprise when this group of three orcas showed up in Vancouver, British Columbia, in March. All three were not in any local whale catalogs.
After some digging, researchers found images of the capsule in Alaskan waters last year, said Shari Tarantino of the Washington-based Orca Conservancy. The capsule includes an adult female and what are believed to be her offspring, including a large young male.
They are now designated as T419, T420 and T421 – where the T stands for ‘transient’ rather than ‘tourist’.
Visiting killer whales have something local whales don’t: circular scars left by cookie-cutter sharks, which latch onto the larger animals and tear off a piece. This was evidence that they spent some time in the open ocean, because that is where sharks live.
“We don’t know their origin with 100% accuracy yet, but the main hypothesis is that they are from Alaska, and possibly from the Aleutian region, given their appearance and the fact that some Alaskans are widely distributed across the North Pacific,” Tarantino wrote in an email.
As for why these three are thousands of miles away from their home range? Tarantino said they were probably on a culinary field trip. This bursa feeds on marine mammals, unlike marine mammals Salmon-eating resident killer whales are endangered – There are plenty of harbor seals, sea lions and porpoises in the Salish Sea.
“They quickly became fan favorites,” Tarantino wrote. “People spend their lives hoping to see a killer whale from the beach, and these three achieved more than that.”