Leading Southern Resident Orcas to Extinction: Tragedy We Can’t Ignore
Southern Resident Orca in the Puget Sound - PC: Author, Berna Tural
We began 2025 with heavy hearts with the news of another tragic loss in the Southern Resident killer whale community. J61, a female calf born to the famous orca J35 (also known as Tahlequah), sadly passed away just days after her birth.
The Southern Resident Orca Annual report
Number of calves born: 4
Number of calves survived: 1
2024 Calf survival rate: 25%
4 Southern resident orcas: dead - (J60 - Jan 2024, L128 - Oct 2024, K26 - Oct 2024, J61: Dec 2024)
Population: 73 (vs. 88 individuals when they were listed on the endangered species list- and should have been protected under the Endangered Species Act).
Conclusion: The population continues to struggle despite decades of pleas, studies, thousands of letters to politicians, and presented solutions to save them.
The Struggle for Survival
The Southern Resident orca population now stands at just 72 individuals, down from 88 when they were first protected under the Endangered Species Act in 2005. This decline highlights the urgent need for meaningful action to save these intelligent and sentient creatures - who have taught us so much. And, we, unmistakably, have so much more to learn from.
Three major human-caused factors pushed them to where we are: starvation, toxic pollution, and deafening noise.
The Root of the Problem: Wild Salmon Scarcity
At the heart of the orcas' struggle is the scarcity of their primary food source: Wild Chinook salmon. Howard Garrett, co-founder and Board President of Orca Network, explains:
"Chinook salmon, which have been their primary diet for eons, are now very scarce out there. So they're relying on other fish, coho, chum salmon, sometimes sablefish, other fish, steelhead when they can find them, but those don't have the caloric value that a nursing mother, a lactating mother, needs to have in order to feed the baby and maintain her own body health."
Studies from multiple resources - including UBC and the non-profit Wild Orca, have long proved the need for high-quality wild chinook salmon for the southern resident orcas. Other fish and hatchery salmon do not have the nutrients to sustain them.
The immediate solution to relieve this stress on wild salmon populations is breaching the four lower Snake River dams. It’s a long political issue in the region. Politicians afraid of losing votes do not take action on the side of survival, despite dozens of expensive studies that continuously showed the only way to save the southern resident orcas and the wild salmon is by breaching the dams.
Constituents are continuously and tirelessly misinformed about the impact of breaching the dams. In the last 5 years, the dams never produced more than 900MWs of power in a year - this has been replaced multiple times over in the last 4 decades and even in the last year via renewable energies. The government’s energy marketing agency and the dam's keepers, BPA, sells and profits off of the surplus energy. The BPA sells more than 900MWs of energy per year to States outside of the PNW. The region does not use the energy from the four dams as it is available and readily supplied by other sources.
Irrigation is not an issue - only 9 farms are receiving water, and studies have shown that the water will still be available in the river by just dropping the pumps a few more feet. These farms pay the BPA millions of dollars in electric bills every year.
Transportation is also quickly and easily resolvable for a handful of farmers. Most farmers in the region already use trucks and rail to transport their grains, even to the barges. A quick and focused effort to restore a few miles of railways can connect all farmers to the cheaper and quicker rail alternative to barges not to mention the economic boom a better-established rail system would bring for recreational, business, and tourism to the region.
The bottom line is we have alternatives. Better alternatives. Immediate alternatives. The Southern Residents don’t. Denying this truth is self-deception and fueling their extinction.
Every day we delay, we tighten the noose around these sentient being’s survival. We’re not observers in this tragedy. By enabling disinformation - we help sign their death sentence.
There is no question - immediate solutions are all there - we just haven’t had anyone with the courage grasp them, and lead the region into a more prosperous future. All in the name of politics, and peanut profits enjoyed by the few. Choosing no action these politicians are damming our region’s growth opportunities and moving into current times, they keep us stuck on a decision from the 60s and 70s! They have the knowledge and the power, but not the guts and courage to use it for survival. Will there be a politician who stands for the voiceless and on the side of the truth?
Tahlequah - a voiceless, innocent, and iconic, southern resident orca - is touring with her second dead baby in the dark and noisy emerald waters of the Puget Sound, with the courage to display her endless grief like no other. Are we going to listen this time and match her courage recognizing the loud call for action, or are we going to watch them sink into the abyss one-by-one so our children can only hear stories about them?
Do you choose to let them go extinct or do you choose to act now and allow them to survive?
