Orca Week

01/06/2025

ORCA MONTH KICK OFF THIS SUNDAY!
June is Orca Action Month. The 2025 theme is “Threads of Life: Connecting Orcas, People, and the Future We Share”. orcamonth.org

13/05/2025

GLOBAL ORCAS of ICELAND
"Orca sightings were beautiful this past week!" OGI

Orca sightings were beautiful this past week! 🌞

30/04/2025

GLOBAL ORCAS ONE SPECIES, GLOBAL HUMANS ONE SPECIES
'While these ecotypes appear and act as different species, they are not yet recognized beyond the umbrella of Orcinus orca." NWR

Killer whale populations are declining, stable, and on the rise.

22/04/2025

HAPPY EARTH DAY! APRIL 22, 2025
Our throw back to Earth Day 2020 50th Anniversary Celebration.
“Earth Day 1970-2020 – Rising Tides” is a poster depicting a warm water arctic circle in a futuristic “Waterworld.” The “North Pole” at the very top of this globe shows a portal with ascending “Tree of Life” representing motherhood, birth, and new evolution in earth’s future flooded coastal ecology due to rising sea levels. The “Climate Action” is to prepare and plan for the inevitable “Rising Tides” and to mitigate the escalating CO2 emissions by all scientific and social engineering methods available. As such, this is just one interpretation.
(click below to read story)

This April we are filling the EasternPennPoints blog with art and poetry in celebration of the 50th anniversary of Earth Day. Rising Tides by S.C. Byrne Artist’s statement: “Earth Day 1970-2020 & #8…

29/03/2025

GLOBAL ORCAS, THE EVOLUTION of CETACEAN SOCIETIES
“Upcoming book, The Evolution of Cetacean Societies: Uncovering the Social Complexity of Whales and Dolphins!

This new volume explores the cultural and genetic foundations of cetacean societies, their cooperative and competitive behaviors, their social complexity, and the deep connections between humans and these remarkable animals.” CWR

We’re thrilled to announce our involvement in the upcoming book, The Evolution of Cetacean Societies: Uncovering the Social Complexity of Whales and Dolphins!

Edited by Dr Darren Croft, Dr Andrew Foote, Dr Ellen Garland, and Dr Stephanie L. King, this book brings together cutting-edge research on the social lives of whales and dolphins. Our own Executive Director, Dr. Croft, and Research Director, Dr. Michael Weiss, are among the contributing authors, with Dr. Croft also serving as an editor.

We’re especially excited that the book’s cover features a stunning image captured by the Center for Whale Research, showing members of J Pod swimming off the west side of San Juan Island. This new volume explores the cultural and genetic foundations of cetacean societies, their cooperative and competitive behaviors, their social complexity, and the deep connections between humans and these remarkable animals.

It’s a must-read for anyone fascinated by marine mammal science and a fantastic resource for those particularly interested in the social lives of whales and dolphins. The anticipated publication date is January 2026, and preorders are available now:
https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/E/bo257312594.html

13/03/2025

GLOBAL ORCAS PHOTOGRAPHY in ARCTIC
"Orcas of Arctic in B&W : Herring Run." GKP

06/03/2025

STUDY of ORCA TEETH MARK SCARS
"We found that scarring caused by mild to intense play and aggression has an inverse relationship with age and is male biased in three highly divergent populations." BC

07/02/2025

BIGGS ORCAS SIGHTINGS REPORT
Wonderful 2024 annual sightings map for Bigg's killer whales in the Salish Sea.

Here is our 2024 annual sightings map for Bigg's killer whales in the Salish Sea. Each color indicates a different season, and the size of the circle indicates the minimum group size reported. All of these sightings were verified as Bigg's either in person or via photos, video, or audio either by OBI or by our network of trusted observers including whale watch captains and naturalists and dedicated shore-based viewers with proven experience differentiating ecotypes. Each dot represents the first location of a unique group seen on a unique day, not repeat sightings of the same group over the course of a day.

We all know that Bigg's killer whale sightings have been off the charts, but just take a look at some of these numbers....

In 2024, sightings were up nearly 30% compared to 2023!! 🤯 That's an increase of more than 400 reports across the year, with the months of May, June, and September all surpassing 220 unique sightings in a single month.

To put this in further perspective, we thought 2017 was a banner year with over 630 sightings. We reached that total this year in the summer months alone. It's hard to interpret trends when the map becomes almost solid with sightings dots, so we'll take a visual look at a seasonal breakdown in the future, too, but a few things do still jump out to me.

Winter sightings, not surprisingly with fewer boats on the water, seem to cluster near more highly populated areas and ferry terminals where there are still regular eyes on the water. This leads me to believe we are probably still underestimating winter presence of Bigg's killer whales. Both Puget Sound and Howe Sound sightings seem highest in the spring months of March through May. And there's a lot going on both in the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the southern Strait of Georgia in the fall!

The Pacific Whale Watch Association and Orca Network are key partners that make this project possible, but this incredible level of tracking is also thanks in large part to the literally hundreds of you openly sharing your reports, many of them in community sightings groups. As we transition to the next age of social media, we encourage you to take a look at the growing Salish Sea whale sightings community on Bluesky, where the San Juan Islands, Puget Sound, and Campbell River have already created active real-time sightings feeds. You can find these feeds and other key Salish Sea whale accounts in our Bluesky starter pack here:
https://go.bsky.app/FfwCsoo

16/12/2024

GLOBAL ORCAS of SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
"The CA51 Killer Whale pod returned to Orange County this evening!! It was the first time we've seen this family off OC since 2018. Our new boat the "Pelican" is pictured, about halfway to Catalina just before sunset, with the pod swimming up the coast." NCA
Great photo by Molly Batts

The CA51 Killer Whale pod returned to Orange County this evening!! It was the first time we've seen this family off OC since 2018. Our new boat the "Pelican" is pictured, about halfway to Catalina just before sunset, with the pod swimming up the coast.

Great photo by our crewmember Molly Batts!

01/12/2024

RECENT BABY ORCA FOOTAGE, Shetland Wildlife"footage from Thursday by Hugh Harrop of the new addition to the Northern Isles Community '27s' Orca pod off Lunna, alongside first-time mum '152'." SW

24/11/2024

GROWING CETACEAN COMMUNICATIONS DATA, WORLDWIDE
"The four whales in the front from left to right are J46 Star, K27 Deadhead, J42 Echo, and K43 Saturna. K45 Uhura is the little whale who is upside down, and K42 Kelp the bigger whale in the back. We love observing these social groups where instead of traveling in matrilines, the whales are all "mixed up"! OBI

While our time in Puget Sound with the Center for Whale Research is over for this year, we are now turning our efforts to data analysis, annotating both hydrophone recordings and drone footage and syncing all the various data streams to bring it all together and hopefully get our first take of what vocalizations were happening from the whales observed from the air.

There may be a lot of computer time ahead of us over the winter, but we are still reveling in our last picture perfect day on the water. Not only was all the equipment working and the whales vocalizing, but the conditions were the best we had seen all trip. We were lucky enough to spend some quality time with this focal group of whales, where interestingly the seven whales present represent six different matrilines!

The four whales in the front from left to right are J46 Star, K27 Deadhead, J42 Echo, and K43 Saturna. K45 Uhura is the little whale who is upside down, and K42 Kelp the bigger whale in the back. We love observing these social groups where instead of traveling in matrilines, the whales are all "mixed up"!

And you can see what I mean about the conditions. 🤩 With no ripples or reflections on the water and high water clarity, it is very easy to see and identify the whales, and to monitor any subtle changes in behavior. This is a still image from one of our seven successful drone flights that day!

17/11/2024

GLOBAL ORCAS of Norwegian Orca Survey
"In this case (photo), we got perfect IDs that will contribute to our annual census of the present in the Skjervøy area." NOS

Today we had long-period swells (big waves), as expected after 2 stormy days 💨☔️ It was wonderful seeing the surfing them 🌊 When we were at the bottom of the wave, the whales were then higher up than our boat, giving a very cool perspective 🐳😍 In this case (photo), we got perfect IDs that will contribute to our annual census of the present in the Skjervøy area 🤓

@ Whale2Sea Orca Survey