Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead): My 17th year honoring the SRKW

This is my 17th year of taking some time on Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) to think about and honor the Southern Residents we have lost over the previous year. Across the last 16 years, that has involved giving tribute to 50 individual Southern Resident killer whales. This year, for the first time, all of the Southern Residents that were alive on Día de los Muertos in 2025 are still alive one year later 🫶

That isn't to say there haven't been losses: neonate L119, seen in February of this year, did not survive. J31 Tsuchi was also recently seen carrying a deceased neonate, and we have no way of knowing how many other pregnancies may have been lost over the last year as well. But there has been a successful addition to each of the three pods: J65 born to J35 Tahlequah, K47 born to K43 Saturna, and L130 born to L91 Muncher. This, coupled with the recent news from SR3 that for the first time since 2008, all three pods have shown an increase in body condition, and it definitely feels like a moment to pause and soak in this positive news. We will continue to do the hard work to help ensure that this is the start of an upwards trend, and not just a single moment in time.

So today for Día de los Muertos, we invite you to peruse the archived posts from previous years. Light a candle for one of your favorites that slipped away too soon, or learn the story of a whale that you didn't previously know or didn't get the chance to meet. A few of them are shown in the photos here. For while we fight on behalf of each of the living Southern Residents and their future descendants, we also carry the memories and stories of those we have lost close to our hearts every single day. I promise in their honor to never give up the task.