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Orca birth in Salish Sea cause for cheer, caution

A killer whale has given birth to a calf in the Salish Sea, first such birth there since 2012. The new calf is a sibling to a whale born off Victoria’s breakwater. Biologist Dave Ellifrit, of the Center for Whale Research in Friday Harbour, Wash.
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Orca calf catalogued as L120 is seen tucked behind adults off the south coast of B.C.

A killer whale has given birth to a calf in the Salish Sea, first such birth there since 2012. The new calf is a sibling to a whale born off Victoria’s breakwater.

Biologist Dave Ellifrit, of the Center for Whale Research in Friday Harbour, Wash., spotted the calf on Saturday in the Salish Sea — an area off the south coast of B.C. and home to the southern resident killer whale.

The orca calf was tucked in between two adult females. It had creases on its side, fetal folds, suggesting it was less than a week old and its dorsal fin was upright indicating it was more than a day old.

It is the 79th southern resident killer whale in a dwindling population considered endangered under Canada’s Species At Risk Act, said Kenneth Balcomb, a scientist with the Centre for Whale Research.

B.C. scientists are celebrating the whale’s birth as a rare and exciting event but are reluctant to cheer too quickly. “Everyone is happy to see a newborn killer whale but we must remain a bit guarded because the first year of life is a challenging one,” said Peter Ross, senior scientist at the Vancouver Aquarium.

Twenty-five per cent of orca calves will not make it to their first birthday, Ross said.

The new orca calf has been catalogued as L120 from the L-Pod.

The calf’s mother is L86. She is one of only 18 female breeding southern resident killer whales.

She has given birth to two healthy whales in the past — a male, L106, born in 2005 and a female, L112, born in 2009, siblings to the new calf.

“The previous sister to this little baby was born off Victoria and I called her Victoria,” said Balcomb. Three years later Victoria, or L112, was killed due to a “blunt force trauma” in the Strait of Juan De Fuca — the source of the blow was never confirmed.

“Let us toast to the new baby, and ponder the human role in its future,” Balcomb said.

He said threats to southern resident killer whales include military exercises in the U.S. and Canada involving sonar and ammunition, commercial and recreational salmon fishing and sewage disposal.

Ross said the top three impediments to southern resident killer whales are: lack of prey (the orcas dine almost exclusively on Chinook salmon); ocean noise (whales communicate, socialize and find prey through sound but seismic testing, sonar and ocean traffic impede their hearing) and high levels of persistent organic pollutants (such as PCBs and PBDEs) which are chemicals that get into the food chain and can interfere with the hormone system in mammals, Ross said.

Southern residents are among the most PCB-contaminated marine mammals in the world, said Ross, a marine toxicologist.

“We not only need an abundance of salmon but we need that salmon to be of good quality, Ross said. “And in order for these whales to find those fish they need a quiet acoustic environment.”

The last documented births of killer whales in the Salish Sea were L119 in May 2012 and J49 in August the same year.

charnett@timescolonist.com