October 2020

Here is the Salish Sea orca sightings map for October 2020. Things begin to slow down this time of year on the Bigg's killer whale front, in part because there are fewer whales in the area but also because there are fewer eyes on the water and spotting conditions can be worse as the winter weather begins to set in. We still had Bigg's present on 21 days out of the month, but often it was just a single sighting, whereas during the summer we may have half a dozen groups in the Salish Sea on a single day.

Southern Residents were right on their 5 year average by being present for 13 days of the month. Their seasonal dietary adjustment to include a larger portion of chum salmon in the fall has meant we've seen fewer fluctuations to their patterns this time of year in response to prey, and as expected they made several trips into Puget Sound, as well as one trip up to the northern Strait of Georgia.