7/9/17 – Sea Lion 1:30 PM Departure
Today on our afternoon sea lion trip we were lucky enough to watch some transient orcas. Transient orcas have been the name of the game this whale watching season, which is giving our guests and naturalists a good opportunity to observe the differences in the transient and resident behavior and physiology. One major difference is their pod make-up or social groupings. Resident orca pods are made of an entire extended family, generally ranging between 20-30 whales in a pod. In comparison to the transients who generally only travel with their immediate family, and even then their socialization remains more fluid. For example, the family of transients we saw today were the T37A’s, which are made up of a total of 5 whales, but only 4 whales regularly travel together. T37A1, T37A’ oldest offspring, has fragmented from the family and generally travels on her own. The decision for a whale to leave a pod seems to be circumstantial to the situation and doesn’t seem to have any pattern between families. For example, some whales (generally females) may leave their pods at a younger age, early sexual maturity, and some may choose to leave once they have had a few calves of their own. However, there are other instances where transient families stay together for life. We also saw T51, a 36-year-old lone male whose family has all passed away so he generally travels alone but will sometimes group up with other pods. It is also not uncommon for lone males to get adopted into other pods whom they are not genetically related to. We have so much more to learn about these animals on a variety of levels and their socialization and groupings are a perfect example of our lack of understanding.