A Family of Bigg’s Killer Whales — a Transient Pod Known as the T68Cs — Spends Over a Month in Puget Sound’s Hood Canal
Story by Sara Montour Lewis
A pod of Bigg’s killer whales off the Pacific coast (Photo: Tory Kallman / Shutterstock)
There was a flurry of whale activity at the end of 2021, where Puget Sound saw several appearances of its endangered Southern Resident Killer Whales along with many Transient Orca Pods, Humpback Whales, Gray Whales, and even a Beluga Whale. Amongst the excitement one pod, the T68Cs (T68C/Bazan and her four offspring: T68C1/Sila, T68C3/Jacobsen, T68C4/Rich, and T68C5/a calf born in 2020), decided to call the Hood Canal home for over a month straight.
On November 19th, 2021 the T68Cs were observed near Marrowstone Island, heading south, and they spent the next 36 days spanning the entirety of the Hood Canal before being spotted near Tulalip, Seattle, Tacoma and Kingston from December 26th - 30th. On December 31st, 2021 they were spotted off of Trial Island in British Columbia, marking the end of their Puget Sound tour and a total of 42 days that the T68Cs spent in Washington waters.
Why would a group that traditionally spends its days traversing the coastal waters of the western United States, Canada, and Mexico decide to spend such an extended time in one place?
Unlike the Southern Resident Killer Whales that eat primarily fish (and are directly linked to the health of our salmon populations), the Bigg’s/Transient ecotype of Killer Whales preys primarily on marine mammals like seals, sea lions, porpoises, and even gray whales. This distinction between food sources is likely a key indicator of why there are increasingly less sightings of the Southern Residents and more sightings of Bigg’s Killer Whales in our waters every year, as the salmon populations are dwindling and the pinniped populations are booming.
A Bigg’s killer whale chases a harbor seal in Puget Sound. (Photo: Sara Montour Lewis)
According to the calculations in a 2018 paper from the Orca Behavior Institute about how many seals are consumed in a day by Bigg’s Killer Whales, the five individual orcas in the T68C pod will have consumed a minimum of 90 harbor seals in their stay in Puget Sound.
While Bigg’s Killer Whales are frequent visitors to Puget Sound, individual pods tend to pop in and out, staying for a day or two at time. While this extended stay is a bit of an anomaly there have been a couple of recorded cases of other extended stays in the Hood Canal. One in 2003 that lasted 59 days and included T14, the T73s, T77s, and T123s and another in 2005 when the T71s and T124As spent over 5 months there.
As we witness our world shifting in innumerable ways time will tell if these extended stays remain a rare occurrence or if Bigg’s Killer Whales decide they have everything they need to make the waters of Puget Sound a more permanent home.
