April 2025

April 2025 is somehow already in the books and we’re ready to give our monthly recap of killer whale sightings in the Salish Sea! First up let’s see how we did on our predictions for April made at the end of last month….

❌ Over 200 Bigg’s killer whale sightings for the first time in April

❌ At least one more newly documented Bigg’s killer whale calf

✅ SRKW presence on more than the 15 days documented in 2024

❌ K-Pod continuing to stick around with Js through the month

We went bold with our predictions, but only 1 of the 4 of them panned out! 😅 Bigg’s sightings for the month were higher than last year, but totaled 179 instead of 200. We did not hear of any newly documented Bigg’s killer whale calves during the month, and K-Pod stuck with Js for half the month, but departed mid-April. We did, however, surpass last year’s Southern Resident killer whale days present – we were able to confirm them in the Salish Sea on 21 days in April!

There may not have been a new Bigg’s killer whale calf, but even more surprisingly there WAS a newly documented Southern Resident killer whale calf! J63 was first seen on April 6th and is the first documented calf of J40 Suttles. J40 has been very “calf-oriented” for many years, often hanging out with whoever the youngest whale is in J-Pod, so many of us are extra excited to see her finally become a mom at the age of 21.

While Js were seen once off Cape Flattery (by our upcoming research intern Elijah while on an OSU research cruise!) we don’t believe they fully left the Salish Sea for more than 24 hours, given where they were seen on preceding and subsequent days. While we were only able to get visual or acoustic confirmation of their presence on 21 days, our “speculated days present” has them somewhere in the Salish Sea for all 30 days of the month, although a couple of those would have been in the western reaches of the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

On the Bigg’s killer whale front some of our expected April events occurred including the T65As spending some time in Hood Canal and the first appearance of the year of T63 Chainsaw and his mom T65 Whidbey. The infamous mom-son duo were first seen on April 6th, then on 11 more days throughout the month. While they were sometimes seen alone, they were also seen traveling with T87 Harbeson (how cool is that!), the T124Ds, and on one day as part of a T-Party including the T36As, T101s, and a few other roving individuals. Also as expected in the spring, all of the extended T124 matrilines were here in some way, shape, or form: T124As, T124A1, T124A2s, T124A4s, T124C, and the T124Ds!

As expected this time of year, the number of “unidentified ecotype” sightings started going down on our maps. These aren’t truly “unknown” killer whales but rather reports of either residents or Bigg’s where the media wasn’t of sufficient quality to 100% determine which ecotype they were. With more eyes on the water in the spring, summer, and fall, as well as more follow up on initially reported sightings, we get more confirmed IDs when the weather is milder and the daylight hours longer. Read more about this and other monthly map questions on our new whale sightings FAQ page HERE