Southern Resident orcas spotted along the Oregon Coast

It was a fortuitous week for marine mammal sightings in Oregon. Normally, Spring Whale Watch Week is an event organized by Oregon Parks and Recreation Department to showcase the annual gray whale migration from Mexico to Alaska. However near Port Orford on March 24th, observers were delighted with the sight of nearly ten Southern Resident orcas from L Pod.

Southern Resident orcas live in and around Puget Sound and occasionally frequent portions of the Oregon Coast. To date, there’s only around 75 of them alive (split between J, K, and L Pod) and they eat a die almost exclusively made of Chinook salmon.

Unfortunately, salmon runs in the Pacific Northwest have declined by over 90% in some places, which had left these marine mammals starving. It’s unclear why members of L Pod were spotted so far South but they could have been in search of their elusive prey. The biggest culprit causing the disappearance of salmon are four dams located along the Lower Snake River. They block the fishes’ access to pristine spawning grounds upriver, ultimately causing orcas to go hungry.

Overall, the L Pod sighting earlier this week is an important reminder that our ocean contains incredible wildlife and that there’s more we could be doing to safeguard it and its inhabitants. If we’re to save Southern Resident orcas, we first must save salmon and a huge step towards doing so would be removing the four Lower Snake River dams.