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Southern Resident Orcas

Ari Marshall

LIU Global College

GCOS 116: Foundations Global Studies

Olivia Sylvester

November 23 , 2020

The Salish Sea is magni cent body of water which encompasses Olympia, Washington, the

Campbell River, British Columbia, and includes the Puget Sound, the Strait of Georgia, and the

Strait of Juan de Fuca (Cox, 2019). Thousands of marine mammals live in the Salish Sea,

including the endangered Southern Resident Orcas. According to a peer reviewed journal written

by Monika W. Shields and other authors, the health of the Salish Sea is vital because, “For the

Southern Residents, the Salish Sea has long been considered their core habitat in the spring

through fall with the entire population returning to the area during these months” (Shields, 2018).

Sadly, the Southern Resident Orcas are in peril of becoming an extinct species. These beautiful

and crucial marine mammals are apex predators, yet they are starving because of lack of Chinook

salmon. There are many issues that need to be addressed in order to save these orcas. The

number one priority is education. According to a survey done by Sea Doc Society, a program

under the University California, Davis’ School of Veterinary Medicine, and Oregon State

University, only ve percent of people surveyed in Washington could identify what the Salish

Sea was (Cox, 2019). This is astounding considering that the Salish Sea is practically where the

majority of people in Washington State live

For my project, I decided to help address the education factor in order to save these orcas.

It is my belief that students in Washington school districts should learn about the plight of the

Southern Resident Orcas in school curriculum, however as of now, there is no emphasis on

teaching about the Southern Resident Orcas. Information about the Salish Sea is so vast because

of all the different organizations and charities that are focused on this issue. In order to make

learning easier and more interesting to middle school and high school students I created my own

website with the basic information about the Southern Resident Orcas. The information listed on

my website is easy to understand and easily accessible. I believe these are two important aspects

of teaching information to younger students. Simple facts are listed about why the orcas are
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endangered, boater regulations when near orcas, and how to take action to save them. These is

also another page for more information if the students would like to learn more.

As mentioned above, the main bene ciaries of this project will be young students in the

South Whidbey School District. Learning about the ocean and the importance of a healthy Salish

Sea is a great foundation to begin understating why a healthy marine eco system is vital to the

success of humans and the earth. According to NOAA, the world's oceans provide 50% of the

oxygen we breathe and stores more than 50 times as much carbon dioxide as our atmosphere (US

Department of Commerce, 2017). In order for humans to have a sustainable earth and a good

quality future we must learn how to manage our oceans responsibly. However, preserving the

worlds ocean and the Salish Sea in particular will not be possible if we don’t make education

about the importance of our water easily accessible and engaging to students who will grow up to

make laws and policies.

While designing and distributing this project I had several successes. The rst was

because I grew up in a small tight knit community. I went to a high school where I knew my

teachers very well and I retained good relationships with them after I graduated via email and

meetings. My teachers have always been interested in my papers and what I am learning about,

so they were absolutely open to the idea of myself sharing information with them. Another great

factor to encourage learning about the Southern Resident Orcas is the fact that everyone in my

school district lives near the ocean. I live on Whidbey Island and our school district only

encompasses people on the south end of the island. This means that nearly everyone lives within

half an hour from the ocean. Being surrounded by the ocean and its resources makes it much

easier for students to understand how magni cent and important it is. I have been able suggest

eld trips to the beach so students can learn out in the real world. My school district is only

fteen minutes away from the beach so visits to the beach can even be done in class periods. On
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the other hand, there were several challenges with this project. Sadly, school is often so stressful

for students that they do work to get it done. This works for math assignments and english

assignments but if we want to save the Southern Resident Orcas and help the Salish Sea,

education can’t be treated as an assignment. Education must be exciting and engaging for

students to understand and feel a personal connection. It would perhaps be even more bene cial

to simply take everyone whale watching and motivate people to take action about what they're

seeing rather than doing another school assignment about a website. This leads into another

challenge that my project faces; South Whidbey has a marine biology class but none of the

material taught here involves chinook salmon. The science classes at South Whidbey are simply

to learn science, none of the work transfers over into writing letters or signing petitions to

support environmental causes. My website has helpful information but I did not include any

resources about writing or emailing government representatives. Students need to learn how to

write and speak to governmental bodies because they aren’t old enough to participate in the

scientific research and rehabilitation directly. There should be more information on my website

about what organizations specifically focus on salmon recovery because scientists agree that the

lack of Chinook salmon is the substantial issue; Monika W. Shields stated in a peer review

scienti c journal that:

While it is recognized that these three risk factors compound each other, lack of prey is

seen as the main road block to their recovery (Lacy et al., 2017). Salmon make up more

than 90% of their diet (Ford & Ellis, 2006) with a particular preference for Chinook

salmon (Shields, 2018).

Another peer review science journal I read was called “Recent declines in salmon body size

impact ecosystems and fisheries” it was written by K. B. Oke amongst other authors, and it
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summarizes how Chinook salmon have decreased over the last decade. Specifically it addressed

that the size of Chinook salmon is decreasing as well as their numbers. Meaning the Southern

Resident Orcas are spending more time and effort chasing smaller fish. When talking about the

three main types of salmon that inhabit the Salish Sea, K. B. Oke stated:

These three species all showed an abrupt decline in body size starting in 2000 and

intensifying after 2010. Size declines were more linear in Chinook salmon than in other

species, but the rate of decline also accelerated after 2000. (Oke, 2020).

My prominent wish is that I could have scaled up this project by actually going back to my high

school and working with my former science teachers to build up a curriculum regarding the

Southern Resident Orcas. I want the website to contain basic facts and the rest to be experiential

learning. To improve this project I would like to talk to my science teachers about intertwining

writing and science so that students can learn in school how to format emails, letters, and phone

calls to government officials.

All things considered, the Southern Resident orcas are in dire trouble. Their numbers

have declined rapidly over the past decade with a 20.4% population decline between 1995-2001.

The Southern Resident killer whales were listed as endangered under the U.S. Endangered

Species Act in 2005 and their numbers have only declined since. I believe the first step to saving

these orcas is educational outreach. In a survey conducted by the University California, Davis’

School of Veterinary Medicine, and Oregon State University, only ve percent of people who

were surveyed understood what the term Salish Sea even meant. It is crucial to teach students in

Washington the cultural importance of the Southern Resident killer whales and this is why I

made a website with information about the whales. It’s easy to use and with simple information

and ways to take action. My greatest wish is to save these orcas, and it begins with education.

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Photo of J-pod, one of the three endangered pods that makes up the Southern Resident Killer

Whales

This is a photo of two J-pod orcas that I was lucky enough to see during the summer. Not all

hope is lost because J-pod has three new babies this year!! Photo Credits to Tabitha Mangia co

who was with me photographing the orcas.

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References

Causes of decline among Southern Resident killer whales. (2020). Retrieved November 28,

2020, from https://conservationbiology.uw.edu/research-programs/killer-whales

Oke, K., Cunningham, C., Westley, P., Baskett, M., Carlson, S., Clark, J., . . . Palkovacs, E.

(2020, August 19). Recent declines in salmon body size impact ecosystems and sheries.

Retrieved November 28, 2020, from https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-17726-

Shields , M., Hysong-Shimazu, S., Shields, J., Woodruff, J., RW, B., LM, D., . . . JK, G. (2018,

December 04). Increased presence of mammal-eating killer whales in the Salish Sea with

implications for predator-prey dynamics. Retrieved November 27, 2020, from https://

peerj.com/articles/6062/

US Department of Commerce, N. (2017, May 24). Why should we care about the ocean?

Retrieved November 27, 2020, from https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/why-care-about-

ocean.htm
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