Species: Southern Resident Killer Whales
Scientific Name: Orcinus Orca
Length: Up to 32 feet
Weight: Up to 22,000 pounds
Status: Endangered (77 wild left, 78 including Lolita)
Location: Puget Sound, Strait of Juan de Fuca & Strait of Georgia
Length: Up to 32 feet
Weight: Up to 22,000 pounds
Status: Endangered (77 wild left, 78 including Lolita)
Location: Puget Sound, Strait of Juan de Fuca & Strait of Georgia
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| Photo: NOAA |
About the Southern Resident Killer Whales
The story of the Southern Resident Killer Whales (SRKW) is a rather complicated one. Unlike some other endangered species that has one significant threat, like fishing nets with the Vaquita, the SRKW has faced a plethora of challenges over the past one hundred years. In the early days of commercial fishing, the orcas were hunted because the fishermen saw the whales as a threat to their means of economic sustenance: salmon. Ironically, one of the major threats to the survival of the SRKW is not their hunting of salmon, but humanity's. It was not until the 1970s that scientists had anything close to an accurate estimate of their population, however there were once though to be upwards of 200 members of the SRKW. Today, that number is just 77 individuals (78, including Lolita, who has lived at Miami Seaquarium since 1970). In 2015, NOAA included Lolita in the endangered species list, since she was wild-caught and a member of one of the three pods that comprise the SRKW: J pod, K pod and L pod.
