We crested the hill on the west side of San Juan Island and watched as Haro Strait opened before us. It was July 7th, 1987—my 18th birthday. And there they were: nearly a hundred Southern Resident Killer Whales. A true Superpod. I stepped out of the car and started to cry. That day changed my life.
SeaDoc’s Team Grizzly journeys to the wildest, northernmost edge of the Salish Sea to get close to THE great bear of the Great Bear Rainforest. Check out the latest episode of Salish Sea Wild all about Grizzlies! www.youtube.com/watch?v=pUZZ...
Thanks so much for your help, @seadocsociety.bsky.social! One Health is all about collaboration, and so is saving species!
academic.oup.com/bioscience/a...
Great new work led by @oceansinitiative.org! Proud to be part of it.
Exciting opportunity to work on a research project focused on the conservation and management of one of the world’s most iconic and endangered marine mammals: the Southern Resident killer whales!
Fully funded for 17 months, covering national/international tuition fees. Based in the UK.
Our killer whale field work will continue through this month and the data collected will inform important killer whale health records alongside @whaleresearch.bsky.social.
“It’s challenging because she’s put all this energy into gestating this calf that does not result in a viable offspring,” SeaDoc Society Scientist Deborah Giles told the Seattle Times. “...We need to be having females being born and living so that they can go on to give birth themselves.”
This weekend Southern Resident Killer Whale J36 was seen pushing her dead newborn calf through the San Juan Islands. It's one of several miscarriages she's had in recent years. We were doing field work with @sandiegozoo.bsky.social and shot this drone footage.
@noaa.gov permit #26288-01
Orca J36 observed pushing another dead calf through Salish Sea waters. This is what “bright extinction” looks like
@whaleresearch.bsky.social @seadocsociety.bsky.social
www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news...
Interesting documentary on #beavers living in and heavily modifying the intertidal zone in the Salish Sea, with probable benefical outcomes for #salmon and other species. From @seadocsociety.bsky.social 🦫🐟
Saltwater-specific material starts about 8 minutes in.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYYU...
Fascinating exploration by @seadocsociety.bsky.social
into one of our most important species in the #SalishSea & #Cascadia region: #Beaver!! 🦫
They're critical for water quality, salmon and forests. But did you know we have a rare population of saltwater beavers in our region? 👀
Wonderful new documentary by @seadocsociety.bsky.social feat. Dr. Greg Hood on the role of beavers in enhancing salmon habitat in estuaries. Their observations certainly align with what we are seeing in areas of the Fraser Estuary (notably the South Arm Marshes).
A salty subset of beavers living in the #SalishSea are vital allies in our fight to save endangered salmon, but we know practically nothing about them! Follow us into the hidden world of the saltwater #beaver in our latest Salish Sea Wild! www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYYU...
Exhaled breath of a killer whale surfacing
We just published a massive dataset on normal baseline breathing rates & swimming speeds in healthy killer whales. We found a hint that skinny or sick whales deviate from those norms.
New, in Journal of Wildlife Diseases
With @seadocsociety.bsky.social
"We don’t have the market cornered on emotions. So I think it’s fair to say that she is grieving or mourning.” @ucdavis.bsky.social @seadocsociety.bsky.social's Joe Gaydos in NYT on second loss for mother orca, Tahlequah. www.nytimes.com/2025/01/02/u...
Full-scale ecosystem restoration will save salmon, orcas, and us. It is time to go all out and take care of this place as if our lives and our livelihoods depend on it. Because they do.
We must also reduce ocean noise that pervades the orcas’ feeding areas, and clean up the persistent toxic chemicals that we dumped in the ocean and now contaminate the whales we profess to love.
Our scientific understanding of the Salish Sea and how it works tells us that we are long past the point of band-aid measures like increasing hatchery salmon or culling pinnipeds. We need to restore shorelines that support the food and habitat that salmon need so they can flourish.
Right now, citizens of the Salish Sea are faced with a decision: dramatically change how we think about and invest in ecosystem restoration or risk losing Southern Resident Killer Whales forever.
The sight of J35 mourning her dead calf is a stark and dreadful memorial to the fact that we’ve allowed the Southern Resident population to fall to what is nearly its lowest point since the Center for Whale Research started monitoring it in 1976.
Losing a newborn leaves a hole in one's heart whether you’re a human or an orca. The only difference is that while we seem to be the masters of our own destiny, the long-term survival of the Southern Residents lies in our hands.
Our feelings have the same physiological bases as the orcas', so we can and should use the same words. Calling Tahlequah's behavior “mourning” reminds us that these animals think and feel, just as we do.
J35’s relatives are believed to be bringing her salmon to eat while she carries her dead baby, and I also don’t think we should be afraid to speak of those as acts of caring or love.
So, can we scientifically call J35's behavior mourning? Yes! Not only do I think we can call it mourning, I think we must call it mourning.
Are we, after all, so arrogant to think we have the market cornered on emotions even though other highly social animals have the same hard wiring?
But as Carl Safina reminds us in his treatise on animal emotions, Beyond Words: What animals think and feel, if animals have the same brain, same hormones, and same neurotransmitters as we do, why wouldn't we expect them to have the same emotions?
For years scientists vigorously avoided using emotional terms like happy, sad, playful or angry when describing animal behavior.
Us humans are long-lived socially cohesive animals, and we exhibit the same epimeletic behaviors. We call caring for our sick “love” and we call the sadness we feel at the death of a loved one “mourning.” But scientifically speaking, can we really say what J35 is doing is mourning?
Is it a coincidence that this behavior, which from the standpoint of a creature’s energy budget makes no sense, has been noted only in long-lived highly social cohesive animals like primates and several species of toothed whales? I don't think so.
The strength it takes for a killer whale to bear the weight of even a lifeless baby for a short time while battling currents and waves, and having to continually surface to breathe is remarkable. Tahlequah did that for 17 days and 1,000 miles in 2018, and now she's doing it again.
