A group of killer whales spotted hunting off the coast of California and Oregon over two decades may actually be their own unique population of animals, a new study says.
A group of killer whales spotted hunting off the coast of California and Oregon over two decades may actually be their own unique population of animals, a new study says.
When the notorious black fin of an orca emerges from the waves, it is almost always followed by another and then another.
The social, family-oriented animals travel in pods, part of larger populations of animals that hunt the same species and circulate the same waters.
But a new study published in the journal Aquatic Mammals suggests there is a group of killer whales that have gone uncategorized by researchers.
« The open ocean is the largest habitat on our planet, and observations of killer whales in the high seas are rare, » study author Josh McInnes, a master’s student at the University of British Columbia’s Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries, said in a March 15 news release. « In this case, we’re beginning to get a sense of killer whale movements in the open ocean and how their ecology and behavior differs from populations inhabiting coastal areas. »
To do this, McInnis and others examined sightings and photographs of 49 different orcas from 1997 to 2021 to see if they had been cataloged in any other existing orca population.
