orca

For Northwest tribes, removing the four lower Snake River dams means more than just saving salmon, more than just saving the orcas that rely on salmon for…

The Army Corps of Engineers began emergency repair work May 22 on a jetty that sits at the mouth of the Skagit River’s North Fork, near La Conner.Crews will use cobble and sediment to essentially plug porous areas of the McGlinn Island Jetty. Those gaps have stranded, harmed or killed out-migrating juvenile salmon this spring, according to a press release from the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community.

The majority of captains of big commercial ships entering and leaving Puget Sound are cooperating with a request to slow down temporarily to reduce underwater noise impacts to the Pacific Northwest's critically endangered killer whales. The duration of the experimental slowdown – modeled on a similar project in British Columbia – will be extended into the new year, organizers announced after a status report and celebration on the Seattle waterfront Friday.

Fortunately, it doesn't happen very often in the Pacific Northwest that ships collide with whales. But when it does, it's upsetting, tragic and the whale probably dies. Three separate teams have developed smartphone-based systems that can alert commercial mariners to watch out, slow down or change course when whales have been sighted nearby. A recent ride-along on a big container ship demonstrated that real-time whale alerts are still a work in progress.

Whale watchers have spotted a record number of humpback calves in inland Pacific Northwest waters this season. There was also a record streak of Bigg's killer whale sightings that just ended, according to a local whale research nonprofit. Those observations offer some good news to offset the ongoing concern about the survival of the Northwest's iconic, but critically endangered resident orcas.

Research photos taken with a drone show multiple killer whales are close to giving birth in one of the Pacific Northwest's critically endangered pods. The late-stage pregnancies stirred excitement among whale watchers -- and also renewed worries about the availability of adequate food supply for the mothers and babies.

About this time every year, the Pacific Northwest gets a report card from the natural world. It comes in the form of salmon run forecasts, and gives us an indication of how healthy the Pacific Ocean and our rivers and streams are. The grades are in, and here’s what you need to know about our scores.

A southern resident orca appears to be emaciated, suffering from the disfiguring condition called “peanut head.” Whale researchers encountered the southern resident orcas' J-pod on New Year's Eve as they swam in Haro Strait.

Officials in Canada and the U.S. are hatching a plan to temporarily capture and treat an emaciated orca. The young whale known as J-50 hasn't been spotted in nearly a week and could already be dead.

Veterinarians are again trying to help the emaciated young orca named J-50, after a dramatic turn of events over Labor Day weekend.