Gloria Pancrazi, co-founder of Coextinction, and I held our breath, waiting. Suddenly, a 12-ton killer whale broke the surface and came crashing down on the water. We tore our gear out of the car and raced towards shore. We learned it was the JPod and among them was J50, or Scarlet, the three-year-old whale whose story had captured the world in earlier in 2018 due to her ailing health and the NOAA efforts in trying to treat her. We continued to watch from shore for about 45 minutes, filming the whales forage. We saw more breaching, tail slapping, and spy hopping. It was the first and last time our film crew saw J50.

Dr. Ken Balcomb, who has been studying the Southern Resident Killer Whales for over 40 years, told us about her birth: “Her mom had trouble passing her and another whale bit the little baby not very hard but just enough to pull it out and left these tooth rakes on her that you can still see.” She began the baby boom; several other whales were born after her following a long run of infertility in the pods. They called her the happiest whale in the world, breaching and playing almost constantly.

Only 72 Southern Resident Killer Whales remain, composed of three pods, J, K and L. These whales have been made famous by films like Free Willy and Blackfish. They spend their lives in close-knit, matriarchal family groups, constantly socialising, vocalising, and foraging for salmon. Mostly Chinook or King, which makes up 85% of their diet. These whales gained international recognition in the summer of 2018 as J35, Tahlequah, carried her dead calf for a record 17 days and over a thousand miles. She captured the media’s attention on what experts called a record-breaking tour of grief.

The Southern Resident Killer Whales are socially complex and emotional in ways far more advanced than humans. But they are starving to death as their main source of prey, Chinook Salmon, are disappearing. According to the EPA, there has been a 60% decline in Chinook population since 1984. But it’s not just food, their population is under the threat of many different issues from toxicity to noise disturbances, many odds have been stacked against them.