We often have people ask us about whether the orcas wear tags and if that is how we know where they are. Since the Southern Residents are listed as an endangered species, researchers are not given permission to attach tags to them. The same logic that discourages the use of tags is the same safety-based thinking that prohibits taking skin or blood
White dot on dorsal fin is satellite tag. Photo courtesy of Cascadia Research
samples from the resident orcas, thereby limiting the introduction of bacteria and infection. Because the resident population is so small (a total of 87 animals) researchers do not want to cause any further stress on this fragile community of marine mammals.
Tags on transient orcas are a different story, though. Since transient orcas are not endangered and appear to have a much larger population than the resident orcas, there are some individuals with tags on their dorsal fins. The satellite tags are used to map the travels of the orcas to try and discover where they are doing most of their hunting and whether there is a discernible pattern to their movements. The tags cannot, however, be used to monitor the animals' locations minute to minute.
Satellite tags have a lag when transmitting information that can be three days or more. Since the tags only transmit when they are out of the water and the signal is picked up by three satellites, the information can be very random and spotty. The transmissions that are logged are then archived by the satellite company and need to be accessed and collected by the researchers who applied the tags. The information is then integrated into the data storage and sometimes posted onto a website for general consumption. Because of the time periods present in this multi-step process, the whale watching industry cannot use satellite tag information to help find the orcas on a daily basis. The visual approach to finding wildlife still works, though, and we use it to our best advantage: even when it comes to transient orcas wearing tags, like the female T099 that we spent time with today. She and her family were swimming up and down San Juan Channel and we could see the tag that she wears on the left side of her dorsal fin.
So, from all of us at San Juan Safaris, to all of you who like to accessorize, thank you and we will...
See You In The Islands!
~Tristen, Naturalist