Whale watchers have recently spotted a rare white orca calf off the coast of Washington and he is becoming a local celebrity.
Tl’uk (“moon” in Coastal Salish), has been seen out and about in the Salish Sea over the weekend, CNN reported. Island Adventures Whale Watching posted a picture of Tl’uk on Facebook swimming with other orcas in the water, showing off his cloudy gray coloring against the black-and-white creatures.
According to Island Adventures Whale Watching lead naturalist Erin Gless, Tl’uk made his first appearance last year, so he’s about 12 months old. Gless said Tl’uk is not an albino whale, but his hue is unusual for orcas. It’s unclear why Tl’uk has a grayish-white color, but he’s growing and has a robust shape, which are all good health signs.
Tl’uk and his fellow orcas are popping up all over the state lately: Last weekend, approximately 20 orcas were spotted in Puget Sound and roughly 40 orcas were observed in the Strait of Juan de Fuca, KOMO News noted. Newsweek pointed out that the Salish Sea includes southwestern parts of British Columbia and northwestern parts of Washington state, and this network of coastal waterways is a main hub for orcas.
“This will be the eighth year in a row of increased transients in the region, with their presence having increased five-fold over that time. To put that in perspective, there were 125 reports of Bigg’s killer whales in the Salish Sea in all of 2011,” Monika Wieland Shields, president of Orca Behavior Institute, told KOMO News. “This year, we reached 125 reports before the end of April.”
According to the Ocean Wise Conservation Association, Bigg’s killer whales prey on marine mammals including sea lions, dolphins, porpoises, and other whales. There are at least three different Bigg’s killer whale populations that live in the coastal waters of the northeast Pacific.
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