A new subpopulation of Orcas has been identified in the open ocean off the coasts of Oregon and California. UBC researchers have identified 49 individual killer whales in photographs taken between 1997 and 2021. 

According to Josh McInnes, a masters student in the UBC Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries and lead author of a new paper in Aquatic Animals, they may also be off the coast of British Columbia.

“I would not be surprised. Transient killer whales can have distributions that are quite large, over 2000 kilometres.  For instance, the transient type of  killer whales that we do know about, that eats marine mammals in British Columbia,  can be seen anywhere between Glacier Bay (in southeast Alaska), all the way down to San Diego, or Southern California. They have large distributions and they move widely,” he explained.

“Killer whales in the Antarctic have been seen moving straight up into the South Atlantic, into the South Pacific, and even up to Australia.” 

Cortes Currents: Why are scientists only just beginning to realize that there is a new subpopulation?

Josh McInnes: “A lot of the issue that we’re facing, with understanding killer whale movements in the open ocean, is the effort that is involved. Surveys are super expensive, the weather out there is complete garbage half the time, and it’s very difficult to get out there.” 

“The reason why we believe we’re seeing killer whales more off California than British Columbia is the continental shelf.  This is the big stretch of underwater landmass that extends out from our continent towards what we call the continental shelf break. The break is where we separate the continental shelf from the open ocean.  It’s actually quite thick.  It’s quite wide off of Vancouver Island. It can go, on average, about 40 kilometers off the coast of Vancouver Island, which is a long way to get to the open ocean. Whereas in California, it’s quite narrow. The open ocean comes really close to the coast.  It’s sometimes within 12 kilometers.  So getting out to the open ocean is a lot easier off California and Oregon than it is off of British Columbia.” 

Cortes Currents: McInnes is a former Campbell River resident, who has also lived in other north Vancouver Island communities. He is familiar with Cortes Island, which he referred to as part of the ‘inner coastal’ area. 

Cortes Currents asked him, ‘How far is ‘the break’ in our area?’  

Josh McInnes: “I’d say 40 kilometers off of Tofino, so that would be off the west coast of Vancouver Island.  The shelf would extend out to the open ocean there.”

“We just don’t have as many observations of oceanic kIller whales off British Columbia because it’s a lot further, and a lot more difficult to survey those offshore waters.” 

Cortes Currents: Tell us  more about your research. 

Josh McInnes: “I’m at the University of British Columbia. My research is on transient killer whales, which are one of three ecotypes, or forms of killer whale, that inhabit the North Pacific Ocean. I’m looking pretty much throughout the North Pacific, from Southeast Alaska down to Southern California.”  

“We have 3 kinds of killer whales that live in the waters of British Columbia. In the North Pacific, we have the residents, which eat fish, salmon. We have the transients, which eat mammals. Then we have another form of killer whale called the offshores, which are a fish eating form that also live further offshore.  They eat things like salmon and sharks.” 

“Through our analysis, we’re really focusing on the transient kind that feed on marine mammals. We were looking at photographs of killer whales taken from between 1997 and 2021 and looking at the markings to try to distinguish individuals. The dorsal fin of a killer whale, as well as the saddle patch, ( a grey area by the dorsal fin) are areas that we really focus on. We look for scratches, nicks and scars. They enable us to tell individuals apart, similar to a fingerprint on a human.” 

“What we were finding, particularly further offshore into the open ocean, were killer whales that we really didn’t recognize. We compared these photographs of animals to all the resident killer whales that we knew, all the transient killer whales that we knew, and then also even the fish eating offshores that we knew of and nothing matched. They were found between 60 kilometers and 400 kilometers off the coast of Oregon and California.”

“What was even more interesting is that the majority of these killer whales,  I think it was like 47 out of 49 of the animals that we catalogued, had really interesting scarring on their saddle patches. They had these weird circular or elliptical marks.  Some of them were fresh, they were like pink tissue. Others were grey or black. We attributed this to what we believe to be bite marks from a parasitic shark called a cookiecutter shark  and cookiecutter sharks only live in the open ocean.”

“The first ever report of Killer Whales occurring in open ocean waters like this was taken from  a study in 1997 that involved 35 killer whales killing a group of sperm whales.  This was actually a paper by Bob Pittman,  a renowned ecologist who studies whales with Oregon State University.”

“He actually witnessed these killer whales, and he had sent me photographs of Individuals that he had encountered.  These animals have the cookie cutter bite marks.  We’ve compiled additional sightings of these oceanic animals and we came to  a realization that,  a lot of these animals are preying on marine mammals way offshore.  This was different from the offshore ecotype that feeds on fish.  So we hypothesized that potentially these might be a subpopulation of transients that likely feed in the oceanic waters, and different from the transients we see in the coastal waters of BC or Washington State.”

Cortes Currents:  Do the warming ocean temperatures have anything to do with their movements?

Josh McInnes: “The thing with killer whales is that they can live in a  variety of temperatures, from pack ice to tropical waters. In California waters, we know that they can occur in water temperatures 10 to 11 degrees Celsius, but then they’re cited a week later off of southern California in San Diego and in 17 degree water.”  

“If there is a climate change issue happening, it’s with their prey.  It would be a bottom up impact from the food web, rather than directly impacting  killer whales in general.” 

Cortes Currents: Is there anything you want to add?  

Josh McInnes: “I have one important thing for you, CTV News just said it was a new species of killer whale. These are not a new species; they’re not a new ecotype. All we can say right now is that this is likely a subpopulation of killer whales that has not been studied extensively.” 

“We hope that we get more information.  I’m already getting emails from tuna fishermen who are getting excited about killer whales, which is really cool because getting fishermen involved can be so difficult, but the tuna fishermen are now out there looking. One of them bought a camera and everything. He said if they see Killer Whales he’s going to stop and take pictures. Those guys go far offshore. So we’re very happy about that.”

Cortes Currents: Where are these tuna fishermen?  

Josh McInnes: “We have a fisherman who works out of the North BC coast, but he goes out to Haida Gwaii and offshore. We have a couple of people in Newport, Oregon, who have cameras on their boat now – and good cameras too, which is great. We have some people in California. Then not just fishermen, We’ve got avid pelagic birders. People who go out birding in the open ocean.  They’re also taking photos. I’m pretty impressed with the amount of animals and reports that we’re getting.”

“I think our next steps will be to try to get a genetic sample, as well as try to better understand the association patterns of some of these animals. That requires more interactions and more sightings of some of the same animals seen out there in the open ocean, which could be like a needle in a haystack.”

Links of Interest

• Evidence for an Oceanic Population of Killer Whales (Orcinus orca) in Offshore Waters of California and Oregon – Aquatic Mammals (#50)
• Articles about Southern pod and Northern pod Resident killer whales
• Articles about Transient (Biggs) Killer Whales
• Articles about Offshore killer whales

Top image credit: Adult male oceanic killer whale OCX012 diving to feed on a successful predation event involving a pygmy sperm whale – Photo credit Paula Olson, NOAA SWFSC

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