The orca, or killer whale, is a toothed whale and the largest member of the oceanic dolphin family. It is the only extant species in the genus Orcinus and is recognizable by its black-and-white patterned body. A cosmopolitan species, they are found in diverse marine environments, from Arctic to Antarctic regions to tropical seas.
Paul Spong is a New Zealand-born Canadian cetologist and neuroscientist. He has been researching orcas in British Columbia since 1967, and is credited with increasing public awareness of whaling, through his involvement with Greenpeace.
Cetology or whalelore is the branch of marine mammal science that studies the approximately eighty species of whales, dolphins, and porpoises in the scientific order Cetacea. Cetologists, or those who practice cetology, seek to understand and explain cetacean evolution, distribution, morphology, behavior, community dynamics, and other topics.
Corky II, often referred to as just Corky, is a female captive orca from the A5 Pod of northern resident orcas. At approximately the age of four, Corky was captured from Pender Harbour off the coast of British Columbia on 11 December 1969. She has lived at SeaWorld San Diego in San Diego, California since 21 January 1987. As of 2024, she is the oldest and longest kept captive orca. SeaWorld San Diego celebrates her birthday on 1st January every year.
Sealand of the Pacific was a public aquarium in South Oak Bay at the Oak Bay Marina, near the city of Victoria, in British Columbia, Canada. It housed a number of orcas: Haida, Nootka, and Tilikum. In 1991, all three were involved in an incident in which a trainer, Keltie Byrne, was killed. The aquarium subsequently closed and sold its orcas to SeaWorld.
Broughton Archipelago Provincial Park is the largest marine provincial park located in British Columbia, Canada. The park is located in the Queen Charlotte Strait around 30 kilometres (19 mi) east of Port McNeill, a town situated on Vancouver Island. In terms of its functions, the park offers tourism opportunities such as kayaking and whale watching, preserves a wide array of wildlife including many at-risk species, and has a long history of use by First Nation peoples.
A marine mammal park is a commercial theme park or aquarium where marine mammals such as dolphins, beluga whales and sea lions are kept within water tanks and displayed to the public in special shows. A marine mammal park is more elaborate than a dolphinarium, because it also features other marine mammals and offers additional entertainment attractions. It is thus seen as a combination of a public aquarium and an amusement park. Marine mammal parks are different from marine parks, which include natural reserves and marine wildlife sanctuaries such as coral reefs, particularly in Australia.
Springer, officially named A73, is a wild orca from the Northern Resident Community of orcas, which frequents the waters off the northern part of Vancouver Island every summer. In January 2002, Springer, then a calf developmentally equivalent to a human toddler, was discovered alone and emaciated some 250 miles from the territory of her family. Experts identified Springer by her vocal calls that are specific to her family, or "pod," and by examining photographs of her eye patch. They were also able to determine where Springer's pod was currently located.
Dozens of orcas are held in captivity for breeding or performance purposes. The practice of capturing and displaying orcas in exhibitions began in the 1960s, and they soon became popular attractions at public aquariums and aquatic theme parks due to their intelligence, trainability, striking appearance, playfulness, and sheer size. As of 24 March 2024, around 55 orcas are in captivity worldwide, 33 of which were captive-born. At that time, there were 18 orcas in the SeaWorld parks.
A4 pod is a killer whale family in British Columbia. As of March 2013, it consists of three matrilines and 15 members and is the family of Springer, the first orca to be successfully reintroduced to the wild after being handled by humans. A4 pod is part of the northern resident orcas found in coastal waters ranging from mid-Vancouver Island to southeastern Alaska up through Haida Gwaii. The community is made up of three clans known as A, G and R clans, each possessing a distinctive dialect and consisting of several related pods. A4 pod belongs to the biggest clan, A clan.
Michael Andrew Bigg was an English-born Canadian marine biologist who is recognized as the founder of modern research on killer whales. With his colleagues, he developed new techniques for studying killer whales and, off British Columbia and Washington, conducted the first population census of the animals anywhere in the world. Bigg's work in wildlife photo-identification enabled the longitudinal study of individual killer whales, their travel patterns, and their social relationships in the wild, and revolutionized the study of cetaceans.
The southern resident orcas, also known as the southern resident killer whales (SRKW), are the smallest of four communities of the exclusively fish-eating ecotype of orca in the northeast Pacific Ocean. The southern resident orcas form a closed society with no emigration or dispersal of individuals, and no gene flow with other orca populations. The fish-eating ecotype was historically given the name 'resident,' but other ecotypes named 'transient' and 'offshore' are also resident in the same area.
Diseases and parasites in salmon, trout and other salmon-like fishes of the family Salmonidae are also found in other fish species. The life cycle of many salmonids is anadromous, so such fish are exposed to parasites in fresh water, brackish water and saline water.
Granny, also known as J2, was a female orca of the J pod of southern resident orcas notable for her long life. Early estimates placed her birth in 1911, putting her at 105 years old at the time of her death. However, this estimate was later theorized to have been based on mistaken information and more recent studies put her at 65–80 years old. If she was 105, she would have been the oldest known orca at the time of her death. Granny lived in the northeast Pacific Ocean and coastal bays of Washington state and British Columbia. She was last seen on October 12, 2016, and was considered deceased by The Center for Whale Research in January 2017.
Lance Barrett-Lennard is a Canadian biologist specializing in the behavioural ecology and population biology of killer whales. A molecular geneticist, Barrett-Lennard uses DNA analysis to study the dispersal, mating habits, and group structure of killer whale sub-populations in the Pacific Northwest. He is best known for his research concerning the conservation of the Southern Resident killer whale sub-population. As of 2022, he is a Senior Scientist in the Cetacean Conservation Research Program at the Raincoast Conservation Foundation.
Piscine orthoreovirus (PRV) is a species in the genus Orthoreovirus that infects fish exclusively, PRV was first discovered in 2010 in farmed Atlantic salmon exhibiting Heart and Skeletal Muscle Inflammation (HSMI) and has been found present at higher concentration in fish with various diseases. These diseases include HSMI, jaundice syndrome, proliferative darkening syndrome and erythrocytic body inclusion syndrome. PRV is thought to mainly affect aquacultured and maricultured fish stocks, and recent research has been focused around the susceptibility of wild stock. However, whether PRV is virulent with respect to HSMI remains a topic of debate. PRV has been in the public eye mostly due to a potential linkage to farmed Atlantic Salmon exhibiting HSMI. Public concern has been raised regarding the possibility of open ocean-net farms transmitting PRV to wild salmon populations and being a factor in declining populations. PRV has not been confirmed to be pathogenic in wild salmon stocks.
Orcas or killer whales have a cosmopolitan distribution and several distinct populations or types have been documented or suggested. Three to five types of orcas may be distinct enough to be considered different races, subspecies, or possibly even species. The IUCN reported in 2008, "The taxonomy of this genus is clearly in need of review, and it is likely that O. orca will be split into a number of different species or at least subspecies over the next few years." Although large variation in the ecological distinctiveness of different orca groups complicate simple differentiation into types. Mammal-eating orcas in different regions were long thought likely to be closely related, but genetic testing has refuted this hypothesis.
The waters of the Salish Sea, on the west coast of North America, are home to several ecologically distinct populations of orcas. The area supports three major ecotypes of orcas: northern residents, southern residents, and transients. A fourth ecotype, the offshore orcas, occasionally venture into nearshore waters. Little to no interaction occurs between the different ecotypes. Resident and transient orcas have not been observed interbreeding, although occasional brief interactions occur.
The marine mammals of the Salish Sea are numerous and diverse, both in taxonomy and morphology. A total of six species of pinnipeds, eight species of baleen whales, seventeen species of toothed whales, and one mustelid inhabiting the local waters of the Salish Sea and the outer coastal waters over the continental shelf off Washington and British Columbia. The Salish Sea's ecosystem is characterized by cold, upwelling-drenched waters that provide nourishment for huge quantities of fish and crustaceans, the primary food of marine mammals, and as such, the diversity and abundance of marine mammals in the area are among the highest in the world.
