Orcas not previously recorded in Seattle delight whale watchers

Orcas seen near Seattle arrive as a previously unrecorded pod

Whale watchers near Seattle have been greeted by an unusual visitor: three killer whales that researchers say had not previously been recorded in the Seattle area have made multiple trips just off downtown and also cruised other shorelines in the Pacific Northwest region in recent weeks. The sightings appeared to follow a route familiar to tourists who commonly look at the city’s skyline from Puget Sound, but the presence of the whales drew a different kind of attention from people hoping to see orcas from shore.

Among the onlookers was Hongming Zheng, who said he spent 10 hours driving to find the “mysterious pod” of whales. Zheng, who photographs whales on his own time, said, “People … are all very happy to see this,” adding that “It was epic.”

Researchers keep detailed records of killer whales that frequent the Salish Sea—the waters between Washington state and Canada—by identifying individual whales through the fins and saddle patches that show up in photographs. The conservancy said the pod that turned up in the Seattle area did not match whales already cataloged locally.

The pattern of sightings first surfaced outside Washington. The Orca Conservancy said the three orcas showed up in Vancouver, British Columbia, in March and were not listed in catalogs of local whales. After additional digging, researchers found photos of the same pod in Alaska waters last year, according to the Orca Conservancy’s Shari Tarantino.

Tarantino said the pod includes an adult female and what are believed to be two offspring, including a large young adult male. She said researchers designated them as T419, T420 and T421, with the “T” standing for “transient,” not “tourist.”

The Orca Conservancy pointed to physical evidence that the whales’ time in the North Pacific has included open-ocean hunting. Tarantino said the visiting orcas have circular scars left by cookie-cutter sharks, which latch on to larger animals and cut off a chunk. Researchers said the scars suggest open-ocean presence because cookie-cutter sharks live in those waters.

The conservancy also said it does not yet know the whales’ exact origin with full certainty. “We don’t know their exact origin with 100% certainty yet, but the leading hypothesis is that they’re from Alaska, possibly the Aleutian region, given their appearance and the fact that some Alaskan populations range widely across the North Pacific,” Tarantino wrote in an email.

As for why the pod appears thousands of miles from its home range, Tarantino said it is possible they are on what she described as a culinary field trip. She said the pod feeds on sea mammals—unlike the endangered salmon-eating resident orcas—and that there are potential prey targets in the Salish Sea, including harbor seals, sea lions and porpoises.

The result, Tarantino said, has been fast attention from the public. She wrote that the three orcas “have quickly become a crowd favorite,” saying “People spend a lifetime hoping to see a killer whale from shore, and these three have more than delivered.”