Southern resident orcas are visiting us less often new study shows

SEATTLE – Finding fewer chinook salmon to eat, the endangered southern resident orcas are visiting the San Juan Islands, their traditional summer home, less often. That’s the main takeaway from a paper published in the journal Marine Mammal Science last week. Researchers documented a 75% drop in reported sightings of the southern residents from 2004 to 2020 around the San Juan Islands. That corresponded with a 50% decline in available chinook, the orcas’ favorite food, from British Columbia’s Fraser River. The southern residents, consisting of the J, K and L pods, are beloved in the Northwest but are struggling to…