#47 - The Orcas of Puget Sound

Send us Fan Mail     In podcast #35 we talked about the Puget Sound -  a body of salt water that is connected to the Pacific Ocean at the Straits of Juan de Fuca north of Seattle and extends 95 miles south to Olympia.  Olympia, Tacoma, Seattle, Bellevue and Everett are cities on Puget Sound. About 2/3 of Washington state’s population live on Puget Sound.     Today we’re going to talk about the orcas who live in the waters of Puget Sound for several months every year. Orcas are also called killer whales. They are in the dolphin family, but because they are so big they are also considered whales. Killer whales sounds scary and dangerous! A killer is a human or animal that kills another creature. The reason they are called killer whales interesting. Hundreds of years ago Spanish sailors called them “ballena asesina”  Ballena means “whale” and “asesina"  means “killer”.  Because the sailors saw orca kill other whales, they called them ”whale killers”. When ballena asesina was translated to English, it was incorrectly translated it to killer whale.   In our conversation we will use “orca” sometimes and “killer whale” other times, to talk about the same animal.     Whales are not fish. They are mammals that live in the ocean.  A mammal is an animal that has fur at some time in its life, a complicated brain, a backbone (spine), and is born alive ( not hatched from an egg);  female mammals have mammary glands that produce milk to feed their young.  “Mamma” is where the word mammal comes from.  Wait a minute! Whales don’t have fur! Well, whales do have fur before they are born. Orcas are big! Males can be 30 feet long and can weigh 22.000 pounds.  They’re very beautiful! They are mostly black on top with white undersides. They have white patches near their eyes. If you don’t know what an orca looks like, please do a quick Google search. Orcas live in every ocean on Earth. Most orcas  are transient killer whales. They hunt marine mammals like seals and walruses, and sometimes other whales. The whales we see in Puget sound are called southern resident killer whales/ orcas. They spend several months of the summer and fall in Puget Sound. Unlike transient whales, the southern resident orcas east only salmon…and only a specific kind of salmon, the chinook salmon.Salmon is a tricky word because it looks like we should pronounce it “sal mon”, but we say “saamon”.      The Southern Resident orcas come to Puget Sound in the summer and fall because that is when salmon are returning from the ocean. The people who live in the Puget Sound region LOVE the Southern Resident orcas. Many Puget Sound residents and tourists go on whale watching boats to look for the orcas. The Southern Resident orcas that visit Puget Sound are endangered (they are in danger of becoming extinct) so scientists watch them closely.       In October 2024, there were 74 Southern Resident orcas. They live in three family groups called “pods”. The pods are called J, K and L pods. Female orcas are the leaders of each pod. The group of pods is called a clan. They use clicks, whistles and pulsed calls to communicate. You can Google “orca communication” to listen to orcas “talking" to each other.  Each pod has its own dialect! The orcas of Puget sound are fascinating creatures!     The best time to see the orcas in Puget Sound is October through December. The San Juan Islands is a good place for whale watching. Lime Kiln Point State Park on San Juan Island is one of the best places in the world to watch whales from the shore.       If you have ever seen an orca, dear listener, please tell us all about it at [email protected]!Tacomaliteracy.org