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<\/p>\nThe orca was stranded between Smith and Minor islands.<\/p>\n
FRIDAY HARBOR, Wash. \u2014 A young killer whale that stranded on a beach in the Strait of Juan de Fuca freed itself Thursday after a coordinated response from Washington leaders.<\/p>\n
The Pacific Whale Watch Association first alerted The Whale Museum that an orca had become stranded in the shallow, low lying area between Smith and Minor islands. Video captured by whale watch captains on scene allowed responders to identify the whale as T65B2, a familiar 3-year-old male transient killer whale.<\/p>\n
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NOAA, the federal agency responsible for whale strandings, authorized a response. A team of trained biologists and wildlife veterinarians from the SeaDoc Society and The Whale Museum gathered live whale stranding equipment and traveled to the scene by boat.<\/p>\n
Michelle Lino, a veterinary translational scientist with the SeaDoc Society, a program of the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine, said the team’s first priority was ensuring everyone’s safety before assessing the whale.<\/p>\n
“The most important thing, first and foremost, is to make sure people are safe,” Lino said, adding that this response happened as thunderstorms rolled through the Pacific Northwest.<\/p>\n
Responders conducted a health evaluation from about 15 to 20 feet away, close enough to observe the orca but far enough to avoid contact. Lino said the team watched his breathing and body condition, two key indicators of a marine mammal’s health.<\/p>\n
“Because whales will expire out their blowhole, you can really tell what their breathing is like,” Lino said. “That’s a really important health indicator for a whale. If they’re not feeling well, they won’t take those big, strong breaths.”<\/p>\n
She said the whale’s body also had a smooth, rounded shape from his head to his dorsal fin, a sign he was not thin or struggling with an underlying health problem.<\/p>\n
“This whale was doing just that,” Lino said of his strong breathing. “That’s really important. When there’s a live whale on the beach, we typically think that something is very wrong.”<\/p>\n
Whale watch captains reported that at low tide, the whale’s white eye patches were visible above the water’s surface, indicating just how shallow the area was where he became stuck. Lino said it is likely the whale and his family, known as the T65Bs, had been feeding on harbor seals in the shallows when he ended up too close to shore.<\/p>\n
“He just ended up a little too shallow and high and dry,” Lino said.<\/p>\n
The team determined the whale was in robust physical condition, showed normal vital signs, and displayed behavior appropriate for the situation, including vigorous movement of his tail as he worked to free himself. Responders concluded he had accidentally high stranded rather than being a sick or weakened animal.<\/p>\n
With an incoming tide and a storm approaching later in the day, the team monitored the whale from a safe distance rather than intervening directly. Lino said conditions, including thunder, lightning, and rising water, factored heavily into the team’s plan.<\/p>\n
“We always are going to get out there as soon as we possibly can,” Lino said, “but it’s really as soon as we safely possibly can.”<\/p>\n
Within about 30 minutes, the rising tide gave the whale enough water to swim away on his own. Later that day, members of the Pacific Whale Watch Association reported seeing him reunited with his family.<\/p>\n
Lino said the transient killer whale population, which relies on a different diet than the region’s endangered southern resident killer whales, has generally been thriving and spending more time in the Salish Sea. On the response team’s trip home, members spotted another group of transient orcas near Orcas Island.<\/p>\n
Lino credited the successful outcome to the network of whale watch operators, NOAA, The Whale Museum, and the SeaDoc Society working together.<\/p>\n
“This was a community that came together to help this whale in a lot of different ways,” Lino said. “We wouldn’t have known about this if the whale watchers had not called it in.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The orca was stranded between Smith and Minor islands. FRIDAY HARBOR, Wash. \u2014 A young killer whale that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":771722,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[79,201],"class_list":["post-771721","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/771721","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=771721"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/771721\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/771722"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=771721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=771721"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=771721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}