Whale researchers say a killer whales of a type not usually seen in the Pacific Northwest have been showing up in large numbers this fall in Washington state’s inland waters and British Coloumbia.
The whales are known as exotic or outer-coastal orcas.
The outer-coastal orcas, which eat other mammals, have been spotted mostly near Vancouver Island, B.C., and the Strait of Juan de Fuca, according to The Seattle Times.
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“The exotics have not been spotted in Puget Sound, where the resident orcas are mainly salmon-eaters,” the Times reported.
Wildlife biologist Brad Hanson told The Times the whales could be there because they’ve had a population boom, or they could be chasing a boom in the population of “seals and sea lions the whales prey upon.”
Hanson said the salmon-eating orcas normally found in the region do not interbreed with the exotics. He said the exotics do not pose a danger to the resident whales, but the number of resident orcas has dwindled for other reasons.
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