Guardians of the Salish Sea, orcas face an uncertain future

Lily Roby

FRIDAY HARBOR, Wash. (CN) — Blue and silver mist splashes in the morning light, the boat’s bow cutting through the water.

As the jagged Olympic mountains reflect on the water’s calm surface, the evergreen forests of the San Juan islands glimmer in the distance like green jewels.

Everything seems to be holding its breath — then suddenly, the sea stirs. Black fins pierce the surface, moving with quiet purpose as they rise and fall in slow, deliberate arcs.

These are the orcas of the Pacific Northwest — marine beasts so epic they seem more mythical than real.

Also known as killer whales, they travel in matriarchal families, hunting with strategy and swimming in synchronicity. They belong to these waters, and these waters are theirs.

These majestic mammals have faced many challenges. Although scientists now know they are among the smartest creatures on Earth, they were long hunted like simple fish. Humans killed them for their blubber or simply to keep them from competing with people for fish stock.

Even as humans became more interested in orcas, it didn’t exactly translate into better treatment. Working for marine parks like SeaWorld, contractors as late as the 1970s used explosives to round up and trap them, sometimes even accidentally drowning the animals.

By the time Washington state banned captures in 1976, the damage was already done. Only 71 Southern Resident orcas remained. Most breeding mothers and calves had been removed from the wild.

The Southern Resident population of orcas was formally listed as endangered in 2005. They continue to face a range of human-caused challenges, including climate change and boat noise.

Even so, advocates are optimistic that things are beginning to turn around. “All of the things that made them endangered happened in the span of one human lifetime,” said Donna Sandstrom, a longtime orca advocate and founder of nonprofit The Whale Trail. In other words, for better or worse, people can have a big impact. “That’s what gives me hope.”

Back on the boat in the Salish Sea, captain Jeff Friedman stands at the helm, patiently scanning the horizon.

The boat’s engine emits a low hum as the morning fog lifts — then Friedman spots fins slicing through the smooth water. He carefully eases the boat forward.

Next to him is marine naturalist April Ryan. The two have worked together for more than a decade at Maya’s Legacy Whale Watching, a whale-watching tour company out of Friday Harbor, Washington.

Together, the pair guide photographers, environmentalists and tourists hoping to catch a glimpse of the whales that have ruled this region’s waters for centuries.

The thrill of spotting a fin never grows dull.

Although the orcas here are technically all the same species, scientists say that multiple distinct populations or “ecotypes” live in the area.

To understand how that could be, think of another complex and highly intelligent animal: the human. Although all humans are the same species, they might live vastly different lives depending on who their parents are, eating different foods and experiencing different cultures.

Bigg’s orcas eat other marine mammals, including seals, sea lions, porpoises and even small whales. They have thrived in recent years as those animals have rebounded.

Resident orcas, which instead prefer salmon, have struggled more. These whales are divided into two clans: Northern Residents, which have a range from Alaska to Vancouver Island, and Southern Residents, which can be spotted as far south as Monterey, California. Southern Residents are listed as critically endangered, with fewer than 75 remaining at last count.

After an orca mother gives birth, her offspring remain with her for life, ultimately raising their own children in the same tight-knit family unit.

These pods can run several generations deep. Knowledge like hunting methods and prey preferences are passed down, resulting in distinct orca cultures.

In the case of Southern Residents, their culture has been under siege for decades. They pass down not only knowledge but traumas, learning to avoid spots where infamous orca round-ups once happened.

Ryan looks out over the opaque water, where a mother and her three calves swim slowly in synchrony.

Asked what the whales need to thrive, she doesn’t hesitate.

“When they’re well-fed, they survive,” she said. “It’s that simple.”

The decline of Southern Resident orcas traces back to a simple truth: There aren’t enough salmon. Chinook salmon, their preferred prey, have been decimated by habitat destruction and warming waters caused by climate change.

Dams are a major reason for low salmon numbers. Four big ones on the Snake River have blocked salmon migration routes for more than 50 years, cutting off access to salmon that would otherwise travel to the sea and back again.

Once-rushing rivers are now 140 miles of slack-water reservoirs, throwing off migrating smolts’ metabolic timetables and meaning only 1% of those salmon make it to adulthood. And fewer salmon making it to the Pacific Ocean also means less orca food.

“If those dams were removed, within a few years there would likely be about a million more Chinook in the North Pacific, and that would feed both the Northern Residents and the Southern Residents,” said Howard Garrett, president of the nonprofit Orca Network. “Other orca protection efforts are very worthwhile, but the orcas are not going to be able to grow their population while those Snake River dams are still in place. They’re more likely to continue to lose populations.”

The food itself can also be harmful.

As apex predators, orcas bear the brunt of toxins dumped into the oceans. Pollutants accumulate in the bodies of salmon, then become concentrated in orca’s blubber as they eat them. These chemicals leave orcas more susceptible to disease and leach into milk fed to calves, poisoning each new generation while they’re most vulnerable.

Boat noise brings trouble for orcas as well.

The animals rely on echolocation to find food and communicate. As ship traffic has increased, ocean waters have grown louder, leaving whales swimming blind.

Sadly, that includes noise from whale-watching tours. “As whale watching increased over the last twenty to thirty years, populations declined,” Sandstrom said. In the late 1990s, only a handful of companies offered tours in the San Juan Islands. By 2018, more than fifty companies operated, with more than 180 boats total.

“They were swarmed and followed on both sides of the border,” Sandstrom said of the whale-watching boom. “I think it was a horror show for the whales.”

Sandstrom previously served on Washington’s Southern Resident Killer Whale Task Force, a group formed by former Democratic Governor Jay Inslee to identify and tackle these interlocking crises.

With Sandstrom’s help, the Task Force launched Quiet Sound, an initiative to reduce vessel noise through speed limits and distance rules.

Regulations are much stricter now, with special protections for Southern Resident orcas. Boats must stay at least 1,000 yards away, with a limited time window for when they can conduct tours. A maximum of three vessels can observe an orca pod at a time, and operate must leave sick, pregnant and otherwise vulnerable whales alone.

While these regulations can reduce disruptions from boat noise, advocates like Sandstrom say it’s just one part of the puzzle.

“These issues are all related, and each one of them makes the other worse,” Sandstrom said. “If there’s too much boat noise, they can’t get enough to eat, and then the impact of toxins is worse. It’s like a three-legged stool, and we have to address all of [the legs].”

Sandstrom isn’t against whale-watching. In fact, she’s had some of the best times of her life aboard these boats. Like other advocates including Friedman and Garrett, she thinks these tours can be transformative, helping turn people from simple orca-admirers into environmental advocates. But in order for whale tours to be a net positive for orcas, she says officials must keep ensuring that they’re conducted in a safe and sustainable way.

As Friedman piloted his boat into view of another orca pod, a young calf’s miniature dorsal fin sliced through the water beside its mother. The midday sunlight caught on their backs.

“They’re in control of every encounter,” Friedman said softly, shutting off the boat’s engine as his passengers fell silent in awe. “We’re not as important or interesting as we think we are.”

Friedman has worked around these whales for much of his life.

Not just orcas in general, but these specific pods and families. He’s learned to recognize them by the curves of their fins and the gray saddle patches on their backs. Each one is like a person to him, like a giant, ocean-dwelling family member.

As humans spend time with these animals in the form of whale-watching tours, “we are learning about their culture more than ever,” Friedman said. He noted that relative to their body size, they have the largest brains of any mammal on the planet.

“They’re smarter than humans,” he added — a remark that got a laugh from his passengers until they realized he was being deadly serious.

Photographing and taking notes on the marine life spotted during that day’s tour, Ryan described how each orca pod has unique communication styles and quirks, just like a human family might pass down traditions and habits through the generations.

Some pods carefully gut sea lions in an intricate ritual, she explained, removing spinal columns and intestines until all that’s left is a “boneless ribeye.” Other pods have developed a taste for seal liver, treating it like a delicacy to be shared with loved ones. These animals are full of contradictions, equal parts fierce and gentle and possessing both animal wisdom and a playful spirit. Humans might like to think we run the world, but the Earth is primarily a water planet, and orcas sure seem to be the real masters here.

Friedman shared the story of a female orca named T46, aka “Wake.”

Back in the 1970s, she was among a group of orcas captured in Budd Inlet near Olympia, Washington. The hunters were contractors for SeaWorld with a federal permit, and the herding techniques they used (aircraft, jet skis, underwater explosives) were completely legal at the time. Still, the scene was so brutal that it would ultimately help bring a legal end to orca capture in the Evergreen State.

A young governor’s aide named Ralph Munro happened to be sailing in the area. The screams of distressed orca calves interrupted his peaceful day of boating, leaving him shocked by what he’d witnessed. Munro lobbied for the release of the whales, including T46, who was about 10 years old at the time. These orcas became known as the “Budd Inlet Six.”

T46 died in 2023, but her offspring have continued to swim in these waters. That includes an orca calf born in September.

Friedman gestured toward the sea, where the tiny, just weeks-old calf was swimming beside its mother. Although Friedman had already heard lots about this orca — news of the birth spread quickly within the whale-watching community — it was his first time seeing the baby with his own eyes.

“T46 is the grandmother to these whales, and the great-grandmother to this new calf,” he said with pride. “She is responsible for this family. It shows what can be changed by just one individual, whether it’s a whale or a person.”

For decades, orcas have completely avoided Budd Inlet. Scientists think word of the infamous 1970s capture was somehow passed down, as if an oral history of a past trauma.

Those wounds are beginning to heal. Just this year, for the first time in decades, fins were spotted rising and falling in these shallow, coastal waters.

How exactly did orcas know to avoid Budd Inlet?

For Sandstrom and Garrett, the mysteries of these creatures border on the spiritual.

Garrett recalled how Southern Residents formed an unusual superpod in 2023, just as the famous orca Tokitae was dying in captivity. One sunny August day that year, literally every known wild Southern Resident orca gathered near Lime Kiln Lighthouse on San Juan Island. Staying unusually close together, the animals swam in bizarre patterns for hours.

“I could not explain it. They seemed to somehow know she was dying, and that defies all explanation,” Garrett said. “Orcas don’t stay in one place for three hours," but this day was different. “They were pretty tightly packed within a quarter mile of the lighthouse for at least three hours, acting very unusually. It wasn’t foraging and it wasn’t really socializing.”

Perhaps the rituals of orcas are beyond human understanding. To many Indigenous tribes in the region, they are protectors of the sea, keepers of great power and wisdom.

“We think we’re the center of everything,” Friedman said, “but we’re just a superficial log that’s able to move. We’re just a flat plane on the edge of their existence.”

The Salish Sea shined gold as the sun dipped in the sky.

Friedman pulled back the throttle and slowed his boat. He always does this at the end of each day, a quiet gesture of respect for the wildlife.

As he sees it, the animals in the Salish Sea are teachers. “We can learn from the killer whales and the humpbacks, from the sea lions and from the seals,” he said as he steered the vessel back toward shore. “We can learn what we need to do to create more positive stories.”

The orcas’ fins became distant shadows, leaving behind only ripples. They spread outward in soft, fading circles, mirroring the boat’s wake. While orcas may be a species in crisis, they’re also a species that endures, inspiring people in the Pacific Northwest and beyond to keep fighting in defense of their wild hearts.