Two of our local killer whale pods, J and K, have been hanging around Central and South Puget Sound the past few days — something quite unusual for the month of February.
As I write this late Sunday afternoon, a large group of orcas has been reported in Seattle’s Elliott Bay. On Friday, the whales came into Bremerton’s Sinclair Inlet as far as Puget Sound Naval Shipyard.
J pod is known to travel in and out of Puget Sound in the winter, but the total amount of time spent in Central and South Sound the past few days — along with the presence of K pod — points toward a pattern I cannot remember seeing before.
Are they finding an abundance of fish, perhaps blackmouth (immature resident chinook) or herring? We’re in the midst of herring-spawning season for much of Puget Sound. Or could the orcas be here to help a newborn calf get off to a good start? There are no confirmed photos of a new calf, but Orca Network is getting some significant reports of a very small orca.
Brad Hanson and Candi Emmons of the Northwest Fisheries Science Center observed foraging during the current visit and collected some fish scales, which should provide information about what they are eating. (UPDATE, 2-7: Brad told me that fecal or scale samples have never been taken from killer whales in Puget Sound during February, at least not until now. So it will be interesting to see what this one fish turns out to be. Brad said he didn’t get a good look at it, but it was a salmonid of some kind.)
The whales were pretty active in and out of the San Juan Islands
the second half of January, before being spotted Wednesday near the
Fauntleroy-Vashon ferry route. Here’s a summary of their activities
since then via reports to Orca
Network:
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