Orca - The Killer Whale

Not so long ago, these highly intelligent and sociable mammals of the sea were seen as ferocious and savage, a killer to be feared and destroyed. We almost succeeded in their destruction, through whaling and shooting them just because they were seen as competition to local and commercial fishermen. The government even went as far as to install a machine gun near Seymour Narrows in Johnstone Strait, British Columbia in order to keep their populations down. Fortunately, the machine gun was never fired and luckily we took a second look at these splendid creatures and found an astounding and astonishingly clever animal, we call the Orca.

Mistakenly labelled a whale, the orca actually belongs to the dolphin family. There are 3 types of Orca in our part of the world; the transient, resident and offshore. This paper will deal mainly with the Northern Resident because of the attainability to observe and study them. For a few months every summer about 200 northern residents return to play in our backyard, the Johnstone Strait and the Queen Charlotte Strait.

The two main types of Orca that you will find visiting the Johnstone Strait, located between mainland British Columbia, Canada and Vancouver Island, are the transient and the residents, the residents splitting further into the southern residents and the northern residents.

Physically almost identical, the transients’ and residents’ similarities end here. Residents eat only fish and cephalopods, transients eat marine mammals and they never eat fish. The only way of visually discerning the two groups are by the dorsal fin and saddle patch, a light colored area situated right behind the dorsal fin. The fins of a transient are more pointed, resembling a shark’s, while that of the resident is rounder at the tip. Saddle patches are also larger on transients.

Where residents are very vocal and travel and hunt in larger groups, transients prefer to keep their company small and are silent predators. In areas where both types of Orca thrive, it is said that sea lions, a favourite food of transients, can differentiate between the calls of the two groups, which suggests this is one of the reasons why transients are silent hunters. Meanwhile it is common to see seals, sea lions and dolphins swimming alongside resident Orca.

Residents are a very social bunch. Young whales of both sexes stay with their mothers all of their lives, living in what we call a matrilineal family group or pod. Each pod consists of the matriarch (the eldest female), her offspring (both male and female) and her daughter’s offspring. The males will occasionally leave the pod in order to mate but return to their mother’s and siblings. There are 16 northern residents pods in total making up 3 clans, which scientists and researchers have designated with a letter of the alphabet. The 3 clans are: A, G and R.

A clan consists of the following pods: A1, A4, A5, B1, C1, D1, H1, I1, I2 and I18.

G clan consists of: G1, G12, I11 and I31

R clan consists of two pods: R1 and W1

The 200 or so northern resident orca are ranked as threatened as per SARA -Species at Risk Act. There are only 83 Southern residents and they have been posted as endangered by SARA. Their habitat is found on lower Vancouver Island and into Washington State, a more populated and industrialized area, a factor that may contribute to their lower numbers.

The A1’s, A4’s, A5’s, C1’s and less often the I1’s and I18’s are the most commonly sighted in the Johnstone Strait area.

The A's are the most frequently sighted in the Johnstone Strait Area.

It is possible to identify individual Orca. Dorsal fins often get nicks and cuts and scars on saddle patches are distinguishable to the trained eye. Each pod also has a unique vocal dialect that consists of a series of squeaks and clicks that are apparently also recognizable with the help of a hydrophone.

Many people have concerns as to whether Orca are a threat to humans. Can they tip over a kayak; can transients confuse a human for a seal in certain circumstances? To the best of my knowledge, there is no record of a wild Orca ever harming a human. They possess a sonar like system known as echolocation, much like bats use and thus are proficient at detecting objects that surround them. There is a video that has been distributed on the Internet that shows an orca jumping out of the water and landing on a kayaker. This video has been identified as a fake. It is actually a commercial for a sports drink that someone cleverly put together using footage from two different sources and combining them making it look like a breaching killer whale is attacking a kayaker.

Only a few cases have been reported of captive Orca harming a human and in one case, killing their handler in a marine theme park. If anything, we are the ones that are a threat to their existence.

Despite surviving whaling, hunting and harvesting for marine theme parks and dodging bullets, they continue to face more anthropogenic threats, this time the threat being more chronic and perhaps even deadlier.

Pop’s or Persistent Organic Pollutants such as PCB’s, PCP’s DDT’s and other environmental contaminators, even though they are now banned in Canada, continue to wreak havoc on the environment. Because everything is connected in nature, the tiniest organisms that are infected pass on the contaminants to the bigger fish that eat them. This process continues all the way up to the top of the food chain, each time the toxicity getting more condensed. Studies have shown the Orca, being at the top of this food chain, to be among the most contaminated mammal in the world.

Depletion of wild salmon, the favourite food of the Orca, due to over fishing, marks the biggest obstacle to their recovery.

Disease and sea lice thought to come from fish farms, a highly controversial subject here on the coast of British Columbia, is also a factor in the declination of wild salmon.

The introduction of non-native species to any habitat, whether by accident or intentionally, is fast becoming a serious issue. Escaped farmed Atlantic salmon can now be found in Johnstone Strait. The consequences are not clear and the topic extremely contentious.

HAB’s Harmful Algal Blooms (ex: paralytic shellfish poisoning) produce toxins, and though not man made, pose a threat to the health of the Orca.

Scientists are currently researching the effect of acoustic disturbances on the whales that are coming from high levels of boat traffic, air guns used for seismic research and military sonar. We know hearing is vital to the whales’ survival. Their ability to detect prey and communicate with one another all depends on their ability to hear clearly.

Article on the damaging results of military sonar on whales
US Supreme Court’s verdict announced on Nov 12, 2008)

Add on the fact that the population has a slow rate of growth to the list of environmental hazards and you have an indication of the odds that the species has to overcome in order to recover. Females become sexually mature at about 15 years of age and only produce one calf every 5-6 years with a gestation period of 16- 17 months. Calves have a mortality rate of about 45%, this means every calf born has an approximate 50-50 chance of survival.

An increase in tourism has been bringing more and more people from all over the world to Johnstone Strait and their goal is to get as close as possible to the whales, either by kayak or whale watching boats. Hence, a set ofwhale watching guidelineshas been created in order to minimize this additional stress and the area is patrolled to ensure these rules are abided by. The whales come back every summer so we are not sure of the amount of stress this produces and it is also short-lived (a few months every summer). Still, measures are taken to make sure they do come back yearly. Robson Bight, an ecological reserve, is located off the north eastern side of Vancouver Island. Located about 32km (20 miles) south of the tiny fishing village of Telegraph Cove, this conservancy is a haven for the popular killer whale. Dotted with rubbing beaches, this sanctuary enables the whales to carry out their natural behaviours in peace. No one knows exactly why they rub their bellies on these pebble strewn beaches. Some think that the scraping helps keep their skins soft and free of debris, like barnacles, enabling them to swim smoothly and freely through the water.

Robson Bight can only be reached by water, there are no roads or trails that lead to it. There was talk of cutting a walking trail from Telegraph Cove to the Bight some time ago but nothing has come of it yet. This would be an ideal way of re-routing people to viewing them from land where impact would be non-existent.

Where these creatures go in the winter remains a mystery. This kind of information would help tremendously with understanding them better and would reveal a wealth of information on their diet and other habits. The more knowledge we have, the more we can help starting to right the chaos we have evoked on their world.

For more information on the northern resident Orca, please take a look at the following links

Orca Lab
The Killer Whale Center
Orca Live