Pacific Offshore Expeditions
Channel Islands​
A Historical Perspective of Killer Whales in Southern California
A primary focus of our operation is locating and spending time with Killer Whales. This species has always been present in the Channel Islands as is documented below, and is likely is increasing alongside booming pinniped populations.
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Historical evidence and accounts
Let's gather some context for current experiences with Killer Whales with an outline of historical documentation of this species in the Channel Islands. Doing so connects us to the people and animals of the past, giving another layer of depth to our present day encounters.
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The oldest evidence for orcas in these waters are petroglyphs or rock carvings made in the "Cave of the Killer Whales" on San Nicolas Island. Conti Et al. in their paper "CAVE OF THE WHALES: ROCK ART ON SAN NICOLAS ISLAND" puts it this way:
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"The natural world of the Nicoleño reinforces the experience of the cave. While we do not know when the paintings were done, we do know that the marine life of the island was not unlike that of today. For example, some 50,000 pinnipeds visit San Nicolas Island each year and they provide excellent prey for killer whales. The Nicoleño would have seen any number of marine mammal species including dolphins and whales. Their view would have been similar to ours-breaching, feeding, spyhopping, carcasses washed ashore and more. They also would have seen the prominent fin of the male killer whale skimming along the water. Whales were the largest, most dominant mammals of the Nicoleño world."​​​
The early American ranchers on the Channel Islands also had their encounters. From 1914 to 1929, Buster Hyder and family lived on Santa Barbara Island. Buster vividly recounted his experiences with Orcas:
Herb Lester was a rancher who lived with his wife and two children on San Miguel Island from 1930 through 1942. In one of his ranch buildings he built himself a bar, named "The Killer Whale Bar". One of Herb's journal entries recounts a sighting of a male orca in Cuyler Harbor
Some of the earliest scientific record of Killer Whale encounters in the Channel Islands are excerpted below, from Norris and Precott's 1961 paper "OBSERVATIONS ON PACIFIC CETACEANS OF CALIFORNIAN AND MEXICAN WATERS"
Here's a fun photo from ~1985, showing a pair of Killer Whales in shallow at Santa Rosa Island. Note the scattered kelp stringers among the whales indicating they are traveling in shallow water. The male is cataloged by California Killer Whale project as CA14. According to Alisa Schulman-Janiger, he is "long gone" by now
Speaking of the California Killer Whale Project, in 1997 Nancy Black and Alisa Schulman-Janiger published a groundbreaking ID Catalog for whales that they and others had been observing off Central and Southern California. The data that these two women collected and processed led to a breakthrough in the understanding of the types and individual Killer Whales that inhabited the California coast. To present day their research stands as the definitive reference to the life histories of the "California Transients". While the 1997 catalog is at this point out of date, a refreshed version is in the works and eagerly anticipated to shed more light on our mammal eating orcas off California
But what about the "LA Pod" of Killer Whales?
Ah yes, the LA Pod. Their widespread fame seems to stem from a 2009 documentary titled "The Whale that Ate Jaws", which recounts the predation upon a great white shark by CA2 off the coast of California. On many occasions when we post on social media a video of killer whales seen of the southern California region, eager commenters like to proclaim that we've seen the LA Pod.
In fact, nobody has seen the LA Pod in a very long time. The last sighting of them was in December of 1997, swimming south off La Jolla, CA, according to Alisa Schulman-Janiger. This group of whales has literally disappeared after being quite prolific for several decades off California and Baja.
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This excerpt from Alisa and Nancy's Killer Whale Catalog gives further description to the LA Pod:
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One unusual group of killer whales known as the LA Pod, as they are often seen off Los Angeles and Orange County, has never been linked to a specific type. They have only been seen with members of their own pod although each member has not been present for every sighting. Whales within this group have never been observed to kill a mammal, many are well marked, often with extensive nicks and tears in their fins, and their fin shape does not appear transient-like. Saddle types of these whales more closely resemble the offshore type of killer whale; however, they have not been linked with any known offshore whales.
This group is composed of at least 13 whales, including three adult males, and was sighted about 30 times between 1982 and 1991, primarily off Los Angeles. However, we have no photographs of the whales between 9/91 and 9/95, although several have been photographed since then. Members of this group have been documented from the Sea of Cortez to Monterey, California. This is the only group of whales identified off the Palos Verdes Peninsula before 1995.
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Modern Encounters and Science
As the federal agency responsible for management of Marine Mammals, NOAA generates a stock assessment report for many species, including two types of Killer Whales known to frequent the Channel Islands: West Coast Transients and Offshores.
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The West Coast Transients population's range is illustrated below in this map from the stock assessment report. Their population size is still being fully investigated, but probably numbers close to 500 animals. This includes both "T" and "CA" whales. Note that the southern end of their range conspicuously is shaded into the northern Channel Islands, but not south to the US-Mexican border. Although transients have been documented to the Mexican border, it does not seem to be a common place for them to spend time.
As we might expect from a Northern Hemisphere species, the peak Killer Whale activity in the southern most extent of their range is late Fall through early Spring. The quietest period of activity is during Summer, when it's assumed the whales spend more time exploring the northern end of their range. For example, in Black Et al. catalog Killer Whales of California and Western Mexico, "California" transient whales are sighted off the coast of Washington, Canada, and Alaska on dates such as July 11th, July 26th, August 6th, August 11th, August 25th. Appearances from West Coast Transients off Central and Southern California in July and early to mid August are uncommon.
One of the definitions of transient is "passing through or by a place with only a brief stay or sojourn". When you look at this satellite tag track of California Transient Killer Whales, you start to get the picture of how well this word describes them.
