{"id":197213,"date":"2025-10-08T09:44:13","date_gmt":"2025-10-08T09:44:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/197213\/"},"modified":"2025-10-08T09:44:13","modified_gmt":"2025-10-08T09:44:13","slug":"drones-capture-rare-killer-whales-off-washington-coast-doing-something-very-special","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/197213\/","title":{"rendered":"Drones capture rare killer whales off Washington coast doing something very special"},"content":{"rendered":"

Researchers have shared magical aerial footage of over 20 Southern Resident killer whales<\/a> swimming together in Washington state.<\/p>\n

The orca scientists recorded the pod of whales \u2013 known as J pod<\/a> \u2013 swimming, breaching<\/a>, and even belly rubbing in the Salish Sea, Washington state.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the footage, you can see two siblings, J-51 and J-58, serenely belly rubbing \u2013 a social behaviour that highlights how Southern Resident killer whales are social and tactile,\u201d says Hendrik Nollens, vice president of wildlife health at San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Nollens and his team are using drones as a way of learning more about the killer whales\u2019 lives without stressing them out by getting too close.<\/p>\n

While studying a pod of Southern Resident killer whales in the Salish Sea, near the San Juan Islands, researchers captured a rare glimpse of a little-seen behaviour. Credit: San Diego Zoo Alliance<\/p>\n

\u201cUsing these same drones we\u2019re able to non-invasively monitor killer whale health by collecting breath and faecal samples as well as intranasal temperatures to better understand the health of the pod and the threats that they face,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

There may be just 73 Southern Resident killer whales<\/a> left in the world so conservationists are urgently trying to find out how to protect them from the threats they face.<\/p>\n

Nollens adds: \u201cWith so few southern resident killer whales remaining, finding opportunities to improve the health of even individual whales can significantly improve the chances for this population to rebound.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Discover more amazing wildlife stories from around the world<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Researchers have shared magical aerial footage of over 20 Southern Resident killer whales swimming together in Washington state.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":197214,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[49,48,66,323],"class_list":{"0":"post-197213","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-science","11":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197213","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=197213"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197213\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/197214"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=197213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=197213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=197213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}