{"id":350763,"date":"2025-12-15T20:57:06","date_gmt":"2025-12-15T20:57:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/350763\/"},"modified":"2025-12-15T20:57:06","modified_gmt":"2025-12-15T20:57:06","slug":"orca-update-the-orcas-who-visited-humboldt-bay-over-the-weekend-were-a-27-year-old-female-fish-named-lester-and-her-kids-lost-coast-outpost","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/350763\/","title":{"rendered":"ORCA UPDATE: The Orcas Who Visited Humboldt Bay Over the Weekend Were a 27-Year-Old Female Fish Named ‘Lester’ and Her Kids | Lost Coast Outpost"},"content":{"rendered":"


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UPDATE, ALMOST INSTANTLY AFTER POSTING:\u00a0Yes, we know they are mammals. Chill out.<\/p>\n

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Quick update on that crew of orcas that graced our presence Saturday<\/a>: Rob Fowler, local naturalist and orca-sighter, forwards us some correspondence he had with Alisa Schulman-Janiger of the California Killer Whale Project<\/a>\u00a0over the weekend, in which Schulman-Janiger puts names to dorsal fins.<\/p>\n

Turns out that the five whales are Bigg\u2019s Killer Whales<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 roaming orcas \u2014 from the T035A group, led by a 27-year-old matriarch named \u201cLester.\u201d With Lester were her kids: 15-year-old Opal (T035A1), 12-year-old Topaz (T035A2), 7-year-old Garnet (T035A3) and 3-year-old Agate (T035A4). <\/p>\n

Schulman said this is the first time these whales have been documented in California waters, though Lester\u2019s mother \u2014 55-year-old Rooby Roo (T035) \u2014 was among the whales who cruised past Humboldt Bay in June 2020<\/a>. Rooby Roo apparently rolls with the T038 squad these days.<\/p>\n

You can get to know the various gangs of Bigg\u2019s Killer Whales, including the T035As, at this cool link from the people at Our Wild Puget Sound<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Thanks again to Rob Fowler for keeping us all in the loop.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" ### UPDATE, ALMOST INSTANTLY AFTER POSTING:\u00a0Yes, we know they are mammals. Chill…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":350764,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[79,201],"class_list":{"0":"post-350763","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-science","9":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350763","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=350763"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350763\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/350764"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=350763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=350763"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=350763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}