Orca Sightings Hit Record High Over Labor Day Weekend

SEATTLE — The Pacific Whale Watch Association is celebrating after spotting nearly 30 Bigg's killer whales over the holiday weekend. According to the PWWA, a 3-hour tour of the Salish Sea Saturday got the surprise of a lifetime when it came across seven different families of Bigg's orcas.

“I’ve never seen so many Bigg’s at once,” said Captain Paul Pudwell of Sooke Coastal Explorations.

The news means there has now been 793 unique sightings of Bigg's killer whales in 2021 — a record high. And with four months left in the year, says there's potential for more sightings to push the record even higher.

As the PWWA explains a "sighting" is a report of a unique group of whales on a given day. The previous sighting record was 747 unique Bigg's orca sightings, pet back in 2019.

Unlike the Southern Resident orcas, which until recently were a much more common sighting in the Pacific Northwest, Bigg's killer whales are not listed as endangered, and have actually seen their numbers grow to by 130 calves over the past decade. Bigg's killer whales, sometimes called "transient" whales, also have a fairly loose social structure and don't form close groupings, or pods, the same way Southern Residents do.

One reason Bigg's killer whales are succeeding while the Southern Resident orcas are struggling is their diets: Bigg's feed on seals, sea lions, and porpoises, which are abundant. Southern Resident orcas, meanwhile, feed primarily on Chinook salmon, which has become increasingly scarce.

“The contrast in health between these two orca populations is striking,” says Erin Gless, Executive Director of the Pacific Whale Watch Association. “Bigg’s prove that killer whales can thrive in this region, so long as there is food. If we can restore local salmon populations, we have hope that Southern Residents can recover. The priority has to be getting them more food.”

As the PWWA notes, the Southern Resident orcas have been largely absent for 2021, with only a few sightings since April. Just last week, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife determined that one Southern Resident calf, the J pod's J56, was in poor health and ordered whale-watch tours to keep away from the pod entirely, the Seattle Times reported.

Several projects are underway to help restore the salmon population and better support the struggling orcas. One of the latest is in the city of Fife, which has teamed up with the Puyallup Tribe of Indians and Port of Tacoma for a long-term project to restore salmon habitats along the Lower Wapato Creek.