{"id":17324,"date":"2025-06-26T21:32:14","date_gmt":"2025-06-26T21:32:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/17324\/"},"modified":"2025-06-26T21:32:14","modified_gmt":"2025-06-26T21:32:14","slug":"orcas-play-by-shore-in-commencement-bay-near-tacoma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/17324\/","title":{"rendered":"Orcas play by shore in Commencement Bay near Tacoma"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Close<\/p>\n

TACOMA, Wash. \u2014 A pod of orca whales was spotted playing in Commencement Bay near Tacoma.<\/p>\n

In a video captured by Colleen Garland, the orcas can be seen near the shore.<\/p>\n

There are three types of orcas in western Washington waters: offshore, transient\u2014also called Bigg’s\u2014or the endangered Southern Residents.<\/p>\n

It’s not clear which whales were in Commencement Bay, but they probably weren’t Southern Residents.<\/p>\n

“Today marks 8 weeks since our last confirmed report of Southern Residents in the inland waters of the Salish Sea,” the Orca Behavior Institute (OBI) wrote on Facebook Tuesday<\/a>. “Over the last 10-15 years, the whales’ travel patterns have changed.”<\/p>\n

Because Southern Resident orcas only eat salmon, environmental factors can play a major role in where they are able to find food. The OBI said in previous absences, “summer heat domes” and high temperatures have negatively affected young salmon.<\/p>\n

The OBI said the non-profit believes most of, if not all, of the Southern Residents are off the western end of the Strait of Juan de Fuca.<\/p>\n

RELATED | New calf spotted in Salish Sea born to descendant of last orca captured in Washington<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

The J-Pod of Southern Resident orcas was absent from the Salish Sea for nearly four months in 2021, according to the OBI.<\/p>\n

“We can only hope we don’t have to wait that long again,” the OBI wrote.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TACOMA, Wash. \u2014 A pod of orca whales was spotted playing in Commencement Bay near Tacoma. In a…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":17325,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[16804,210,16810,16807,16803,16809,16808,16806,16805,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-17324","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-commencement-bay","9":"tag-health","10":"tag-j-pod","11":"tag-orca-behavior-institute","12":"tag-orcas","13":"tag-salish-sea","14":"tag-salmon","15":"tag-southern-residents","16":"tag-tacoma","17":"tag-united-states","18":"tag-unitedstates","19":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114751808888484028","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17324","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17324"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17324\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17325"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}