Shhh! Pregnant whales off the starboard bow. Puget Sound boaters asked to be mindful
Wildlife experts are asking boaters to throttle back and steer clear of a pod of Southern Resident killer whales which includes three pregnant mothers. The group of whales, called J-pod, is known to visit the South Puget Sound in the fall and winter months.
Three female orcas in the pod are pregnant. Scientists have given them the rather unromantic labels of J36, J37, and J19.
Whale J36, in particular, is close to giving birth, according to the nonprofit SeaLife Response, Rehabilitation and Research (SR3).
The state Department of Fish and Wildlife adopted an emergency rule on Sept. 9 ordering whale-watching boats and other vessels to stay at least a half-mile away from the pod to avoid disturbing their feeding.
“This designation and the additional distance is necessary to ensure that J36, J37, and J19 are able to meet their late-stage pregnancy nutritional needs and to give these pregnant whales the best chance of success and survival in birthing,” the emergency order said.
Pregnant whales need about 25 percent more food — usually in the form of Chinook salmon — than normal. Noise from boat propellers can disrupt their feeding and make it difficult for them to locate salmon by echolocation, according to a WDFW release.
“We need to work together to give these pregnant whales every chance of success,” said Scott Rumsey, Deputy Regional Administrator for NOAA Fisheries West Coast Region, quoted in the WDFW release. “The more they can forage undisturbed, the better their odds of contributing to the population.”
There are three pods of Southern Resident killer whales, also known as orcas, in Puget Sound, designated J, K and L, totaling 74 individuals.
A key finding from research that NOAA Fisheries published earlier this year indicated the effects of vessel noise are especially harmful for females, which often give up foraging when boats approach within 400 yards.
Killer whales reproduce relatively infrequently, with females giving birth to only a handful of calves in their lifetimes, according to a paper in the journal Natural History by John Durham, a NOAA marine mammal scientist.
“Not surprisingly, killer whales invest hugely in each of their offspring,” Durham and his two co-authors wrote. “Gestation lasts a year and a half, and the calf will then spend its entire life with its mother’s group, receiving help from close relatives in finding and capturing food, and in caring for its own offspring. As a result, however, killer whale populations grow very slowly, and the survival of each calf becomes crucial to the endurance of small populations.”
While the three pods of Southern Resident killer whales spend most of their time in northern waters of the Salish Sea, they often follow migrating salmon down into Puget Sound in the fall and winter months, said Eryn Couch, spokesperson for WDFW.
There was angry social media reaction in July 2020 when a fleet of up to 30 boats, jet skis and other watercraft chased and circled a pod of whales as they swam through the Tacoma Narrows and past Fox Island, The News Tribune reported.
Federal regulations established by NOAA Fisheries say boaters must stay 400 yards beyond an orca’s path. Boaters must maintain a speed of seven knots or less within half a mile of orcas. Washington state law requires vessels to stay 300 yards on either side of resident orcas.
Boaters are encouraged to watch for the Whale Warning Flag, an optional tool from the San Juan County Marine Resources Committee, that lets others know that there might be whales nearby. If boaters see the flag, they should slow down and continue to follow Be Whale Wise regulations.
For more details about steps recreational boaters can take to keep the whales safe, visit BeWhaleWise.org.
This story was originally published September 24, 2021 at 5:00 AM.