Like many of you, we are devastated by the news of L128, the sick (likely dying) calf born recently into the southern resident killer whale population. In a recent, collaborative and multi-authored paper, we noted that to prevent the "bright extinction" of SRKWs, we need to help the whales beat the odds on all fronts. We need to protect habitat and prey so that just a few more female orcas become pregnant, stay pregnant, calve successfully, and have their offspring live long enough to survive and reproduce as adults themselves. Doing so will require a lot more salmon and a lot less noise, but increasingly, we're convinced that it will also involve a major investment in health initiatives to protect whales like L128.
In our newest study, in the Journal of Wildlife Diseases, our coauthors at The SeaDoc Society and San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance helped us summarize literally tens of thousands of data points we collected noninvasively on individually recognizable killer whales. We found a hint in the data that, like L128, sick whales have slower swimming speeds and shorter dive times than you'd expect from a healthy whale of the same age and sex. We are keen to ramp up this work, because it may give us an early warning sign that a sick whale needs a veterinary check-up. If we can prevent even a few whales from becoming sick, and a few sick whales from dying, it will slow the SRKW decline, stabilize the population, and put them on the road to recovery.
Thanks to all of you who support our efforts to protect marine wildlife.
https://lnkd.in/gPvFMsb2
#whale #science #wildlife #veterinarian #animal #disease #health #welfare #conservation #orca #brightextinction #climatechange
