Annual orca count shows first dip since 2001

FRIDAY HARBOR, Wash. – A yearly count of endangered southern resident killer whales this summer in Washington and British Columbia’s inland marine waters found their number had dipped from 87 to 86, the first downturn in six years.

The net loss came despite two whales being born this spring, The Center for Whale Research said.

Last fall, researchers thought two calves and three adult orcas might be dead after they were no longer seen. Those deaths were confirmed this spring, and a third calf, whose mother was one of the missing adults, was missing from its pod.

“The summer’s not over,” said Kelley Balcomb-Bartok, a research associate at the center based in Friday Harbor. “It’s not unusual for calves to be born in August or September. This is by no means a final number.”

Lynne Barre, a marine mammal biologist with the National Marine Fisheries Service, the agency responsible for orca recovery, said this summer’s count is the first population downturn since 2001, when the population dipped to 79. The population peaked in the mid-1990s with 97 whales.

The research center has kept a photographic census of the southern residents since 1976. Those orcas – members of family groups known as J, K and L pods – spend late spring to fall in the inland waters of Washington and British Columbia.