These Puget Sound orcas could be designated as distinct species

While it may seem obvious now that Bigg's and resident killer whales are different species, the scientific detective work proving it was years in the making.

John K.B. Ford, the renowned Canadian marine mammal biologist, a reviewer of the paper, remembers the first time he began to think something was profoundly different among the killer whales he was observing as a young scientist for Canada's Department of Fisheries and Oceans Pacific Biological Station at Nanaimo. Back then, in the 1970s, the so-called transients were called that because they were so rarely seen. Scientist Bigg also called them "oddballs," Ford said. But with the legal protection of marine mammals, the transients' numbers grew along with their prey. And that is when some of the key differences between the transients and residents started to emerge, suggesting there might be multiple species of Orcinus orca.

This was also during the capture era, when killer whales were netted for aquariums around the world. When two captive killer whales nearly starved to death rather than eat salmon, scientists began to realize killer whales had profound dietary preferences.

The Bigg's, Ford noticed, also made very different sounds from either the northern or southern residents. "I was shocked at how different they sounded," Ford said. "I made recordings and realized they all shared the same dialects, unlike the residents, where you have different clans, and pod-specific dialects." These, he realized, were languages, passed on culturally, generation to generation, just like the residents' emphatic dietary rule of eating only fish.

Once scientists could show just how different the Bigg's and residents are from one another, another question emerged for scientists researching this paper. What to call the two species? That's where a bit of skulduggery from the past surfaced, in Jefferson's research into the history of the scientific names for these animals over time.

Scammon, the whaling captain, wanted to publish his descriptions of killer whales in a scientific journal — but as a nonscientist, he knew he needed help. He sent his write-up to the Smithsonian Institution, where it ultimately found its way to zoologist Edward Cope. He not only edited the manuscript, but unbeknownst to Scammon, Cope sent the manuscript — with his own, extensive narrative at the top — out for publication. So it is that Cope's name, along with Scammon's, is on the paper published in the Academy of Sciences of Philadelphia in 1869, with Scammon's first descriptions of orcas as a species.

It is from that paper that the names suggested today for the new species come, under the scientific tradition under which whomever is the first to describe a species gets to name it. Hence, the scientific Latin binomials Orcinus rectipinnus, Scammon's description of what turned out to be Bigg's killer whales, and Orcinus ater, his name for the what we today know to be residents.

What's in a name?

The new classifications are of more than academic interest. The deeper understanding that undergirds the species designations underscores that the residents are unique in the world — a special and distinct society all their own.

The southern residents that frequent Puget Sound are particularly at risk. There are only 73 left. They face many threats to their survival, including lack of adequate, readily available Chinook salmon, boat and ship noise that interferes with their hunts, and pollution that taints their food.

"If we lose that segment of biological diversity, it is irretrievable," Jefferson said. "It is critical for conservation that we understand that."

These new species designations, emerging since the 1970s, are sure to be just the beginning, as scientists learn more about other killer whales.

"It's an important first step," said Durban, another author on the paper. "Something that has to keep going for killer whales around the world.

"It's anything but an academic exercise. This shows how differently these animals live their lives, and how we need to protect them. And it makes killer whales all the more fascinating."