Killer Whales: 'Transient' Orcas Are Thriving - The Atlantic

Killer whales that feast on seals and hunt in small packs are thriving while their widely beloved siblings are dying out.

On a warm September afternoon, on San Juan Island off the northwestern coast of Washington State, I boarded J2, a sleek black-and-white whale-watching vessel. The boat was named after a locally famous orca, or killer whale, affectionately known as “Granny.” Until her disappearance in 2016, Granny was the matriarch of J-pod, one of the three resident orca groups, or pods, that live in the surrounding Salish Sea. For what some experts think was more than a hundred years, Granny returned to these waters every summer, birthing babies and watching them grow. She taught her daughters and sons to hun

related reading

• Orcas are still smashing up boats – and we've finally worked out whynewatlas.com
• Are Orcas Smart Enough to Plot Against Humans?sentientmedia.org
• Humpback sex photographed for first time – and both whales were male | Whales | The Guardiantheguardian.com
• Whaling in the United Statesen.wikipedia.org
• The Strange and Secret Ways That Animals Perceive the World | The New Yorkernewyorker.com
• How we used gigabytes of shipping data to show risks to endangered whales | NPR Visuals + Editorial Graphicsblog.apps.npr.org
• We're All Just Having Fun Here - Freddie deBoerfreddiedeboer.substack.com
• Heroines - THE WHALING MUSEUMcshwhalingmuseum.org
• Contextual and combinatorial structure in sperm whale vocalisationsnature.com
• Art and Accounting in the Age of Whaling | Hakai Magazinehakaimagazine.com
• Whale fall - Wikipediam.wikipedia.org
• Remembering Long Island Ladies Who Took to Sea - THE WHALING MUSEUMcshwhalingmuseum.org