New orca calf brings hope to endangered J pod near Vancouver Island<\/a><\/p>\nDuring the census period, researchers documented four births among all three distinct pods of\u00a0southern\u00a0residents, but only two calves survived, it says.\u00a0<\/p>\n
An adult male from K pod, known as K26, also went missing in late summer 2024.<\/p>\n
Weiss calls it a \u201chuge loss\u201d for the\u00a0southern\u00a0residents, which are suffering from a lack of genetic diversity as their numbers plateau and shrink.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe population is very inbred, very low genetic diversity, which is probably causing some issues for survival and resilience towards disease,\u201d Weiss says.<\/p>\n
There is a strong correlation between age and reproduction in males, with greater success among older members of the population, he says.<\/p>\n
The survey found 27 males of reproductive age, meaning older than 10. But Weiss says fewer males are actually breeding at any given time and the youngest male confirmed to have reproduced among the\u00a0southern\u00a0residents was 15.<\/p>\n
Weiss says he considers the prime reproductive age for\u00a0southern\u00a0resident\u00a0males to be in the early 20s and just 12 males are currently at least 20 years old.<\/p>\n
The male that is presumed dead, K26, was the oldest of its pod and was one of the few adult males confirmed to have successfully reproduced at some point.<\/p>\n
At the same time, females are reproducing at a rate that\u2019s roughly half that of their neighbours, the northern\u00a0resident\u00a0killer whales, and mortality among calves is high \u2014 about 50 per cent in the first year of life among\u00a0southern\u00a0residents, Weiss says.<\/p>\n
If those trends continue, the population will slowly decline, he says.<\/p>\n
Weiss says K pod is in a particularly bad state, numbering just 14 members and tied for the lowest number across the survey\u2019s 50-year history.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s really concerning about K pod is they\u2019re just not reproducing,\u201d Weiss says.<\/p>\n
A female member of K pod last gave birth in 2022, and prior to that it had been about a decade since the last successful birth in the pod, he says.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe only pod that\u2019s growing is J pod,\u201d he says. \u201cThey\u2019ve had a low mortality rate for adults in the last few years, but that could change very quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n
The survey also revealed just 11 immature whales younger than 10, representing just 15 per cent of the\u00a0southern\u00a0residents\u2019 population.\u00a0<\/p>\n
By comparison, immature orcas make up 47 per cent of the northern\u00a0resident\u00a0population, which is growing and faring far better, Weiss says.<\/p>\n
While the two populations bear similarities, he says the\u00a0southern\u00a0residents rely on a specific salmon species, chinook, which has itself been declining.<\/p>\n
The\u00a0southern\u00a0residents often get the \u201clast crack\u201d at chinook that largely migrate from northern waters to rivers along the Pacific coast, Weiss adds.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese salmon are going through, you know, fishing fleets and \u2026 other killer whale populations and it\u2019s the\u00a0southern\u00a0residents that are kind of getting the last bit of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Restoring salmon habitat and moving chinook fisheries away from ocean waters and estuaries are two levers governments could pull to help the orcas, Weiss says.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you\u2019re fishing out in the ocean where everything\u2019s mixed up, it\u2019s really hard \u2026 to avoid taking fish from these declining populations,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
The\u00a0southern\u00a0residents\u2019 urbanized habitat is another factor in their struggle.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re trying to hunt in these areas where cruise ships and freighters are coming through every day,\u201d Weiss says. \u201cIt\u2019s trying to find food on a highway.\u201d<\/p>\n
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 13, 2025.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The latest survey of endangered\u00a0southern\u00a0resident\u00a0killer whales confirms their plateau and gradual slide toward disappearance in the absence of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":212255,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[49,48,66,323],"class_list":{"0":"post-212254","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\/212254","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=212254"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212254\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/212255"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=212254"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=212254"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=212254"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}