Newport recently had a couple of unexpected oceanic visitors: two Bigg’s killer whales, looking for a seal meal.
The two whales were observed off Yaquina Head near Cobble Beach on April 25, and their individual identities confirmed through a collaborative effort between citizen science groups and researchers.
Julie Conrad, who leads the local citizen science group Oregon Whale Sightings, confirmed the sightings by comparing them with her personal photo database. She identified the whales using distinctive features such as notches on their dorsal fins and the unique patterns of their eye patches, which function much like fingerprints.
A local Ph.D. student, Elijah Foster, also contributed by submitting images to Finwave, a platform where users can upload photos of orca fins for identification by researchers. Jared Towers of Bay Cetology further confirmed the identifications based on Foster’s photographs.
The whales were identified as T50E and T50B1. T50E is also called “Grandmama,” and was born in 2013, while T50B1 also goes by “Blakeslee” and was born in 2012, according to ourwildpugetsound.com. They are both members of a matrilineal group known as the T50s, meaning that they are direct descendants of T50, or “Boulder," born in 1980.
Despite Grandmama’s name, Boulder is actually Grandmama’s mother and Blakeslee’s grandmother, while Grandmama is Blakeslee’s aunt.
Historically, killer whales have been referred to as one global species with many “ecotypes” around the world, meaning groups that are particular to an area and have distinct genetic, physical, and behavioral traits that distinguish them from other ecotypes.
Bigg’s killer whales were referred to as a distinct ecotype from the familiar Southern Resident Killer Whales (SRKWs), but in 2024, scientists confirmed a long-held hunch that Bigg’s orcas and SRKWs are different species.
As opposed to the SRKWs that spend their time primarily in Puget Sound, Bigg’s killer whales travel up and down the west coast. While SRKWs’ favorite food is salmon, especially Chinook salmon, Bigg’s killer whales hunt other marine mammals like young gray whales, seals, and sea lions.
In fact, Grandmama and Blakeslee may have been doing just that — spectators that gathered on shore watched as the whales chased harbor seals in the shallows near Cobble Beach, though no successful hunt was observed.
This brought back memories of this same group (the T50s) seen attacking a gray whale calf off of Cape Foulweather in May 2023.
