FIVE THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT ORCAS
Matriarch whales lead their pods to rich hunting grounds,
help other whales hunt and share fish with young novices. But there’s something special about Shachi, who lives in the Salish Sea south of Vancouver.
1 GRANDMOTHER ORCA IS BOSS OF ALL
At 40, Shachi is not just a matriarch, but a grandmother. She gave birth in 2005 to Eclipse, who a decade later produced a male named Nova. Shachi is the boss of them and
the J Pod, one of three orca family groups that make up the area’s southern resident killer
whale population.
2 MATRIARCH HELPS EVEN WHEN SALMON LOW
Eclipse, at 10, was the youngest female ever known to reproduce, and she did so after a period of low numbers of Chinook salmon. “Most of the calves born in that period did not survive,” said Michael Weiss, a behavioural ecologist at the University of Exeter in England, who has been studying these whales since 2012. How did Nova make it? Weiss gives credit to Grandma
Shachi, who often stuck by Nova’s side as his mother was
off foraging.
3
WHALE MENOPAUSE
The grandmother effect becomes even more pronounced after menopause, as they have more time and resources to share when they’re not taking care of their own calves. If a southern resident grandmother orca dies, her grandwhales are much more likely to perish within two years. That becomes even more probable
when salmon are sparse.
4 MANY HUMAN PARALLELS
The death of a grandmother can negatively affect a grandwhale’s chance of survival even
in adulthood. This is yet another point of comparison between us and these intelligent and emotionally complex marine mammals. Last summer, a female in Shachi’s pod, Tahlequah, offered a mesmerizing display of the species’ capacity to mourn, carrying the body of
her dead calf for 17 days.
5 MANY PROBLEMS FOR SALISH SEA ORCAS
Just 73 resident killer whales remained in the Salish Sea as of July; they’re endangered in the U.S. and Canada. Dams, agricultural runoff, overfishing and other human-made problems have decimated the
Chinook.