What Do Southern Resident Killer Whales Eat

February 10, 2022 Post a Comment

As long as the whales are getting enough to eat the toxins end up staying locked in their fat Giles explained. Southern Residents it turns out are picky eaters.

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While they will eat a variety of prey including sole cod herring and squid their preferred diet is Chinook salmon.

What do southern resident killer whales eat. Each year these top ocean predators consume more than 25 million adult Chinook salmon along the West Coast. The primary threat to this population of Orca is the inability to find sufficient food Chinook salmon. BCs Southern Resident Killer Whales unlike their cousins the Transient Killer Whales do not eat seals as part of their diet.

Orcas need to eat around 200-300 pounds kg of food each day which is around 4 of their overall body weight. This is because their main food source is salmon. Habitat disturbance and underwater noise from marine activities and vessels make it difficult for orcas.

Since the salmon numbers decrease in the Salish Sea during the winter resident killer whales disperse and hunt for salmon in the open North Pacific. Deborah Giles a leading Southern Resident Killer Whale expert who works with her scat sniffing dog Eba to understand the physiological health of these whales. Southern Resident Killer Whales face a multitude of threats.

The resident orcas that visit the waters surrounding San Juan Island are known as the Southern Resident Killer Whales SWKW and are comprised of three different pods J K and L containing 84 individuals as of fall 2015. Southern resident killer whales are nearly physically identical to very genetically similar to and officially the same species as dolphin-eating Biggs killer whales that roam the same waters. The SRKW population must catch a minimum of 1400 salmon daily to sustain their needs.

At least 80 of the SRKWs diet consists of Chinook salmon Based on estimates of their food requirements the average Southern Resident killer whale must consume 18-25 adult salmon daily just to meet its energy requirements. The larger the fish the more energy a whale can get for its meal. Most use some form of coordinated group-hunting.

Southern Residents eat only fish almost entirely salmon while Biggs aka Transient killer whales feed on marine mammals. Southern Residents due to their collaborative salmon-hunting techniques travel in large family groups with grandmothers and grandchildren socializing and feeding together in years of good health. The Southern Resident killer whales spend much of the winter along the coast in the Pacific Ocean.

It also examines how these chemicals are transferred both from the whales favored prey Chinook salmon and between mothers and calves. Killer whales prefer to eat only the biggest juiciest Chinook salmon they can find. The Southern Resident Killer Whales eat mainly chinook salmon.

Resident orcas may also eat bottom fish and other salmon species. Northern residents and southern residents both of which primarily eat chinook transients also called Biggs killer whales. There are three types of killer whales in the northeastern Pacific.

SRKW are known to cooperatively hunt for prey and share prey between the family groups and within the pod. PREDATOR CONTROL IS A SOLUTION. Rather seals are direct competition for the Chinook Salmon that comprise both of their diets.

While transient killer whales rely mostly on marine mammals and squid southern resident killer whales eat.

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