A member of the endangered Southern Resident Killer Whale population found dead in Canada last week is the sixth to die this year, not including two stillborn calves spotted in January and May.
J34 (DoubleStuf), an 18-year-old member of the J pod, was found off the coast of British Columbia last Tuesday, and a necropsy performed Thursday revealed the whale died of blunt force trauma to the head. According to CTV News Vancouver, Department of Fisheries and Oceans spokesman Paul Cottrell said the finding could indicate J34 “was struck and killed by some kind of vessel.”
That has not been confirmed, and an official cause of death has yet to be determined.
For Vashon’s Ann “Orca Annie” Stateler, of the Vashon Hydrophone Project, DoubleStuf’s death caps off a “horrible year” for the southern residents.
“They died in some particularly awful ways,” she said Friday. “There were also two stillborns — that’s significant.”
The year started with the news that J55, a weeks-old calf, had gone missing and has since been presumed dead. Two months later, in March, L95, a 20-year-old male southern resident, died from an infection due to satellite tagging. In August, matriarch J14 went missing, then October brought news that J28 (Polaris) and her calf, J54 (Dipper), who experts say were seen becoming thin, died from starvation.
Additionally, J31 was seen carrying a stillborn fetus on her nose on the same January day J55 went missing. In May, K27 was seen with a premature fetus.
“As you can see, our reproductive-aged SRKW gals are having a dreadful time bringing their babies to term and keeping them alive,” Stateler said in an email. “So much for the lauded ‘baby boom.’ Prey (salmon) availability is one issue, but it is not the only problem.”
The deaths come on the heels of a year that saw eight new babies born into the Southern Resident population. Experts lauded 2015 as the best year for the whales since 1977 when nine new calves joined the southern residents.
“These whales are in dire condition. They’re dying right in front of us,” Stateler said Friday. “We are witnessing an extinction unless we figure out how to save them.”
She said that there are 79 southern residents left, a “really low number,” which calls for humans to address multiple fronts that contribute to their endangerment.
“We are going to have our work cut out for us,” she said. “It’s not just dam removal. We need to oppose projects like the Kinder Morgan pipeline and stop commercial whale-watching.”
— Anneli Fogt
