Where in the world are Killer whales found?
Illustration courtesy Kelley Balcomb-Bartok/All Rights Reserved
Killer whales are found in every ocean and traverse nearly every coastline of every continent world-wide. High concentrations of whales — and researchers — are found in the North Pacific Ocean, the Indian Ocean, and the South Atlantic Ocean.
Known by many names in many languages, orcas/killer whales/blackfish/etc. are found in all oceans and seas, particularly where food supplies are abundant. Since the pioneering efforts of the late Dr. Michael Bigg — who compiled the first photographic catalogue of orca whales for the Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada, beginning in the early 1970s — photo-identification of marine mammals has made leaps and bounds forward in both global coverage and our common understanding of the species world-wide.
In those early days, by simply circumnavigating Vancouver Island and photographing every pod of orcas he encountered, Bigg amassed a tremendous amount of baseline information about orca populations of the Pacific Northwest.
Bigg’s efforts were the basis of recognizing distinct populations and differentiating “Northern” pods from “Southern” pods — those residing nearly entirely along the northern end of Vancouver island, and those residing mostly around the southern end of the island.
Much like a yearbook is a photographic representation of a human community (eg. a school student population), a photo-identification catalogue of whales represents a whale community at a particular time. The main difference is that many orca whale communities remain together throughout life for many generations, always appearing together in sequential catalogues (yearbooks). And when they travel, they do so as a community like nomadic tribes in the sea.
The vocalizations within a whale community are distinct and different from those in other communities, serving to keep the pods together, or bring them together over large expanses of water when it is impossible to see each other.
As studies of the world-wide distribution of orca whales have grown progressed using this widely-accepted technique, a much clearer picture of orca populations and societies has emerged. For example, they form multi-generational groups of genetically related families — clans — that travel together throughout life.
Clans of Killer whales roam every ocean, travel along nearly every coast of every continent and frequent core areas such as the San Jaun islands on a regular basis. Our orcas come here for the salmon that are seasonally abundant.
Others inhabit the cold arctic waters where large clans may gather to feed on schooling herring — such as Iceland — while in the Argentinian waters of Peninsula Valdez yet another clan teaches their offspring to slide up specific beaches to capture young elephant seals.
Along the shores of the remote Crozet islands south of Madagascar another clan has been observed waiting just off shore at the mouth of a river where unsuspecting young sealions are just beginning to learn to swim.
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