Today was J-Pod's seventh straight day in Puget Sound!

Today was J-Pod's seventh straight day in Puget Sound! And they've been up to a lot during their time there.

Yesterday and today, many observers were lucky enough to spot a brand new calf traveling with the J16s, a particularly hopeful sign after J36 Alki had lost her newborn earlier this month. Also today, the majority of J-Pod did something very unusual: they went south of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge!

The Southern Residents historically visited the southernmost reaches of Puget Sound, as evidenced by a series of captures that occurred there between 1965 and 1972. During that time, at least 8 whales were taken into captivity from those captures, including most famously the original Shamu who was taken from Carr Inlet and Hugo, Lolita's companion at the Miami Seaquarium for a decade, who was taken in Vaughn Bay.

Their visits to the south sound after that are not well documented. NOAA's critical habitat designation for the Southern Residents in 2006 notes that "south of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, there have only been a small number of Southern Resident sightings from October-January, with one additional sighting in April". Since then, according to Orca Network, both K and L Pods separately went south of the bridge in 2014 (though reportedly didn't go much further than that), but there are no recent records of Js going that far south.

Today, Js went west in Hale Passage past the Fox Island Bridge and up into Carr Inlet at least as far as Raft Island. We can only imagine where they might show up tomorrow! The J16s, meanwhile, did not go under the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, instead turning north to go up Colvos Passage as reported by viewers to Orca Network. Our sightings assistant Brooke was lucky enough to see them off the south end of Vashon and snapped this pic she generously shared with us to share with all of you!