20 Years Endangered

Slick's dorsal fin is so tall, that before she returned for her first calf she was for a brief time considered a sprouting male.

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While it wasn't immediately clear, Shachi eventually became the new matriarch of J-Pod after the loss of J2 Granny. She's often in the lead when the pod travels through major waterways like Haro Strait.

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Shortly after having her first calf J34 in 1998, Oreo also became a surrogate mother figure for her 3 year-old orphaned niece J32 Rhapsody.

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Mike is named after Canadian killer whale scientist Michael Bigg who pioneered the technique of being able to photo-ID individual killer whales based on their natural markings.

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After the loss of their mother in 2008, Blackberry played a key role in helping to raise his younger brother J39 Mako, who was five years-old a the time. The two brothers were inseperable until J39 reached adulthood.

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Orcas can have unique markings in unexpected locations. Tsuchi is a prime example with a jagged black "cheek line" below her eyepatch.

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Tahlequah has famously carried two of her deceased calves for long periods of time after losing them shortly after birth, demonstrating the depth of an orca's capacity to feel grief.

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First seen in December 1999, Alki was the last Southern Resident born before the new millenium. Her name, also the unofficial Washington State motto, comes from a Chinook jargon word meaing "future prosperity".

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Hy'shqa is one of the "exceptions that breaks the rule". Instead of being rounded like most resident killer whale dorsal fins, her dorsal fin is more pointed like that of a transient/Bigg's killer whale.

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Cookie has a unique line where his back appears higher behind his dorsal fin than in front of it. Already known for his rounded dorsal fin and unique saddles, fans think this just adds to Cookie's charm!

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While growing up, Mako would rarely leave the side of his older brother Blackberry. Now, his primary travel companion is his aunt J19 Shachi.

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Suttles and J41 Eclipse (born one year apart) used to play together a lot as calves. In 2024 and 2025, both Suttles and Eclipse had calves of their own, and now their daughters play together, too!

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When Eclipse gave birth to J51 Nova in 2015, she became the youngest Southern Resident killer whale mother on record, giving birth before the age of 10.

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While her mom and two older siblings often travel close together, Echo is more of a social butterfly, often spending time with other female whales in J-Pod outside her matriline.

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Moby's name is a reference to Moby Dick, because his right side eyepatch looks like a white sperm whale.

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At the end of 2025, Se-Yi'-Chn got a new notch at the base of his dorsal fin. We rarely know the cause of a specific injury, but in this case the rake marks on either side of the wound indicated it was from rough-housing with another killer whale!

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After the loss of their mother J28 Polaris, Star was seen trying to support her younger brother J54 Dipper. Unfortunately, since he was still of nursing age at the time, her efforts were unsuccessful.

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Notch got his namesake marking at a young age. The size and shape of his notch has changed dramatically as his dorsal fin has grown with age.

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Thanks to genetic analysis done by NOAA, we learned more about paternity in Southern Residents. While many calves at this time were found to be fathered by J1 Ruffles and L41 Mega, T'ilem I'nges is the only known whale fathered by L79 Skana.

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While some juvenile males start roaming from their matrilines to spend more time associating with unrelated whales, Nova has maintained his strong family bonds. He often travels with his grandmother J19 Shachi or plays with his younger sisters.

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Kiki is one Southern Resident that has shown particular resilience. She lost her mom J17 Princess Angeline in 2019 when she was less than four years old. Thanks to her extended family, she was able to survive.

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Tofino is known for being a very surface active whale, breaching far more often than other Southern Residents.

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When Phoenix was a calf and his mom J35 Tahlequah was off foraging, he would often get up to amusing antics to entertain himself. These included balancing driftwood on his known, carrying kelp around in his mouth, and breach competitions with his podmate J58 Crescent.

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As the firstborn granddaughter to current J-Pod leader J19 Shachi, one wonders if young Crescent might one day be the matriarch of J-Pod!

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All whales who are descendents of J14 Samish have been named by the Samish Indian Nation. That includes Sxwyeqólh (pronounced "Swee-a-kosh"), whose name means "brings hope for the future".

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Unlike J63, who ventures away from mom often, in her early years J62 stayed in the slipstream of her mom J41 Eclipse, rarely being babysat by others.

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J63 has an adventures spirit, comfortable traveling away from mom and with other J-Pod whales from a young age.

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Sequim has some of the most unique saddle patches among all Southern Residents: both sides are very wispy and also narrow. On the left side in particular, her saddle patch barely extends under her dorsal fin at all!

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K14 was originally named Leon when it was believed she was a male. When it was discovered she was in fact a female, they adjusted her name to Lea instead. Coincidentally, the same thing happened to L14, who was originally named Cordelia. When he was discovered to be a male, they changed his name to Cordy.

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Male Southern Residents receive survival benefits from their mothers into adulthood. The Center for Whale Research has demonstrated this "son cost" through their census data, where having a son decreases future reproductive output of a mom. Opus is one example of this. After giving birth to K35 Sonata in 2002 at age 17, she was never documented having another calf.

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Along with J16 Slick, Spock is one of the female Southern Residents that was briefly listed as a male in the ID guides. Both females have taller fins, leading reseachers to believe they might have been sprouter males, until they returned with their first calves.

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In addition to her distinct wispy saddle patches, another of Sekiu's identifying features is what we call a "black spine". This refers to the gray saddle patch not extending fully to the line of the back, resulting in black pigment along the spine of the whale when viewed from the side.

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Usually, Southern Residents enter and exit the Salish Sea through the Strait of Juan de Fuca, but occasionally they come over the "top" of Vancouver Island and down Johnstone Strait entering the Strait of Georgia from the north. Deadhead was part of a group that returned to inland waters this way several summers in a row, most recently in 2021.

Monika has always thought of K33 as a shape-shifting killer whale. He looks so different at different angles that she's mistaken him for almost every other adult whale in the population at some point in time.

The K16s (Sonata's matriline) and the K18s (a now extinct matriline) used to occasionally travel separately from the rest of K-Pod. Sonata seemed particularly close with K21 Cappuccino, the last living member of the K18s. Interestingly, since Cappuccino's death in 2021, K-Pod has moved as a more cohesive unit again with it becoming rare for Sonata and his mom to break off.

All Southern Resident calves are a cause for celebration, but Yoda's birth of her first calf K47 in 2025 was particularly exciting. As the smallest of the three pods with the fewest number of reproductive females, having another successful mom in K-Pod was a huge beacon of hope.

A rain shadow occurs on the leeward side of a mountain range, where protection from prevailing winds leads to much drier conditions. K37 Rainshadow's name is a reference to his mom K12 Sequim; Sequim is a town in the rain shadow of the Olympic Mountains, and gets less than half the rain that Seattle does.

Comet is one of a few Southern Resident males whose fins have not grown to their expected height. At over 20 years old, his fin still looks like that of a young sprouter male.

In 2015, Kelp, his mom, and two siblings spent the entire summer traveling with J2 Granny and her extended family. They returned to traveling with K-Pod in the fall.

The average age a female killer whale gives birth for the first time is 15. As of 2026, Saturna is 16 years old, and we are all very hopeful we will see her with her first calf soon!

Uhura was the first calf born into K-Pod after an astonishing 11 year gap. As a female, she is a key hope for the future reproductive future of K-Pod.

K47 appeared to "skip" a number in the K-Pod alphanumerics due to a bizarre piece of history. The K46 designation was given in the 1980s to the whale formerly known as L46, when for the first and only time a matriline was reassigned to a different pod.

Many Southern Residents females have calves with different males, but in a few cases, there have been repeat matings resulting in full siblings. One such example is Lapis and her brother Takoda. Both of them were born to L55 Nugget and were sired by J1 Ruffles.

With his tall dorsal fin and bold, wide open saddle patches, Fluke is one of the most easily identifiable of all the Southern Resident killer whales.

During multi-pod aggregations, young male Southern Residents often form what researchers have called a MOSI, or male-only social interaction. These groups often include a lot of sociosexual behavior and are an important part of life for a juvenile male. During his younger years, Pooka would often be seen with J39 Mako during these assocations. The two males are just 2 years apart in age.

Coho was first documented by researchers on the outer coast near Grays Harbor, WA in April of 2006. At that time, we didn't know much about where K and L Pods spend the late winter and early spring months, but additional research has shown they spend a lot of time between Grays Harbor and the mouth of the Columbia River.

Takoda has one of the most classic adult male resident killer whale dorsal fins in the population: broad and tall with a rounded tip and a silght cant forward.

Midnight had an injury to his mouth when he was young, resulting in an extra flap of skin along his jaw line.

L113 is one of many whales in the Salish Sea who has multiple common names or nicknames. She was named Cousteau through The Whale Musueum's Orca Adoption Program and was also named Molly by the Center for Whale Research. It's important we all use the same alphanumeric designations to track the whales for scientific purposes, but you can use whichever common name you like best!

Mystic's survival ended a heart-breaking series of four previous calves born to his mom L47 Marina, none of which survived a full year.

Young orcas often play with their food, perhaps in part to help hone their hunting techniques. During the summer he was four years old, Finn was observed pushing salmon around at the surface in Haro Strait. Either he was still learning how to process a caught fish for prey sharing, or he was trying to bring back the famed "salmon hat" trend from the 1980s!

Keta belongs to the small L54 sub-group, one of three distinct social units within L-Pod. Encounters with the L54s are rare, as they are the group of Southern Residents that spend the least amount of time in inland waters.

Orcas often get rake marks from the teeth of other whales, and usually these fade over time. Jade is unique in that she has distinct white rake marks on both saddle patches that have persisted, giving her a feature that makes her easily identifiable.

A unique trait of Joy is that she is the progeny of two whales with consecutive alphanumeric designations. We know from observation that her mom is L77 Matia, and from genetic sampling her dad was determined to be L78 Gaia.

Windsong was first documented on the outer coast of Washington by NOAA researchers in February 2015, during one of a series of winter oceanic surveys aimed at better documenting Southern Resident killer whale habitat usage outside of the Salish Sea. Thanks in part to these surveys, SRKW critical habitat was extended to include the outer coast in 2021.

Magic was part of the baby boom of 2015 where an incredible 11 Southern Resident calves were born over a period of 13 months. While we rarely see birth rates anywhere near this level, it provided a surge of hope around the reproductive potential Southern Residents have if we can give help recover their prey enough for them to survive.

Like so many other sons born to whales in K and L Pods, Lazuli doesn't have any living siblings. A new calf seen in early 2026 might change that, as Lazuli's mom L103 Lapis is thought to be the mostly likely mother of L129, too. We will have to wait for L-Pod to return again in 2026 to learn if Lazuli does indeed now have a little brother or sister.

On her left side, Whistle has a unique open saddle patch where the pigment is actually split into two broken segments that don't connect with one another, the only Southern Reisdent to have such a marking!

Element has seemingly formed a friendship with K45 Uhura who is one year younger than her. The two often associate when K- and L-Pods are together, perhaps in part because they are closer in age to each other than to any of their own podmates.

L126 was first photographed by a fisherman off Tofino. When the L12 sub-group visited inland waters two weeks later, the Center for Whale Research went out to look for this new calf, and were greatly surprised to fine not one but two new babies traveling with this group! Balcomb received the first number since he was the first one photographed; the second calf was designated L127.

Scuba has one of the thinnest and widest open saddle patches among living Southern Residents. Saddle patches typically brigthen as whales get a little older, and we can't wait to see hers come in more clearly!

L129 was first seen during a rare February visit from L-Pod to inland waters. Because the visit was so brief, researchers aren't yet 100% certain who their mom is!

Spirit's estimated birth year is 1971, the same year that the last live capture of Southern Residents occurred. Three members of L-Pod were taken that year, and had the captures continued, Spirit likely would have also been taken in subsequent years for display in marine aquaria.

Ocean Sun is currently the oldest living Southern Resident killer whale, estimated to have been born as early as 1928.

Ino had a distinct whistle when she breathes! With most orcas, you can clearly hear their exhale when they come to the surface, but for a few whales like Ino, you can also clearly hear their inhale.

Due dorsal fin shape and saddle patch, Nugget used to be easily confused with J17 Princess Angeline. They are one example of similar looking whales across pods, leading one to wonder if it's a coincidence or if they might have been related!

In 2012, Racer was part of a group of five L-Pod whales that spent the summer traveling with J-Pod.

We often refer to Southern Resident killer whale matrilines by the female that is the "glue" that holds the whales together, regardless of if she is alive or not. Matia and her sister L94 Calpyso lost their mom L11 Squirty in 2000, but because she is the matrilineal link between them, we still refer to Matia, Calpyso, and all of their descendents as the "L11s".

Incredibly, the birth of L82 was witnessed by researchers in the summer of 1990. Observation notes included the whales moving quickly, rolling at the surface, and the newborn being raised to the surface by podmates.

Despite being from different pods, Moonlight has a very similar left-side saddle patch to K22 Sekiu: they are both open saddles with beautiful wispy edges.

Surprise! was given her name because she was born to a female who was thought to be post-reproductive. Some estimated ages of whales within the L4 matriline were reassessed after her birth.

Onyx is the only Southern Resident to have switched pods for years at a time. After over 15 years traveling with K- and J-Pods, he again associates primarily with the L12 sub-group into which he was born.

Wavewalker is the last surviving member of the L2 matriline. He travels with the L54 sub-group and seems to have found a surrogate mother figure in L54 Ino.

In 2024, Ballena became the oldest first-time Southern Resident motherwhen she gave birth to her first documented calf L128. Sadly, L128 didn't survive, and it's thought that Ballena's small overall size might contribute to her poor reproductive success.

Muncher is one of 19 L-Pod whales that spent a full month in Dyes Inlet in Puget Sound in the fall of 1997.

Calypso is a beacon of hope in L-Pod, being one of the females who is successfully reproducing on a regular basis with surviving calves born in 2009, 2015, and 2023.