T46 Wake (aka S1) is a particularly iconic matriarch within the Salish Sea. Our knowledge of her story began in early 1976 when she was captured in a net pen in Puget Sound as part of the “Budd Inlet Six”. Sea World’s Don Goldsberry was responsible for the chase, a dramatic event involving seal bombs, aircraft, and chase vessels that was famously witnessed by then-aide to Governor Dan Evans (and future Washington Secretary of State) Ralph Munro. The outrage following this event, which was permitted at the time, led to a media frenzy. It would end up being the last orca capture in the state of Washington.

The whales captured in Budd Inlet alongside T46 were T13 (aka O5), T14 (aka O6), T26 (aka S3), and T27 (aka S5), and T47 (aka S2). T13 and T14 were later fitted with radio transmitters and relocated to Kanaka Bay on San Juan Island, where they were released seven weeks later. T46 and the others were released from Budd Inlet prior to that. Perhaps related to the traumatic event, there was later a 13-year gap in sightings of T46 and her family. When she returned, there was some confusion about who her confirmed offspring were given the long period of time that had passed; this led to a couple of her first born being given their own “T” numbers as opposed to a “T46” sub-designation as her later offspring would receive. Ultimately, she was assigned as the confirmed or probable mother to 8 whales: T46A, T122 Centeki, T123 Sidney, T46B Raksha, T46C Carmanah, T46D Strider, T46E Thor, and T46F Loki.

T123, T46B, and T46C would disperse as they had their own offspring, traveling as independent units. T46A died young, and T122 never had any known offspring of her own, and thus stayed traveling with mom. T46D, E, and F were all sons who also stayed with mom. As a result, the T46s throughout the 2000s became a well-known fivesome led by T46. T46 had two notches in her fin making her easy to identify on her own, but her sons T46D Strider and T46E Thor would get their own large notches, making the family group one of the easiest Bigg’s killer whale groups to identify.

T46 was last seen in early 2023; by March, the four of her offspring who nearly always traveled with her started to be seen on their own without their mother. With an estimated birth year of prior to 1966, she was at least 57 years old at the time of her death. We wondered what would happen to her four offspring with her loss, as sometimes the death of a matriarch leads a family group to fracture. At least throughout the rest of 2023, however, the four remaining whales we considered part of the “T46s” were still traveling together as a unit. (Her other descendents are now known as the T123s, T46Bs, and T46Cs, referring to the mother in each of those disparate units.) Perhaps T122, now an elder female in her own right, became the surrogate mother figure for her three younger brothers, despite not having any offspring of her own.

Not only was T46 part of an iconic moment in the history of human’s relationship to orcas in the Pacific Northwest, she demonstrated what a difference a single successful reproductive female can make to a population. At the time of her death, she had an incredible 27 known descendants, 23 of which were still alive as of 2023, making her one of the most prolific mothers known to researchers. It’s hard to imagine what the Bigg’s killer whale population would be like today if she had been taken into captivity in 1976; it’s equally hard to imagine what the population of both Southern Resident and Bigg’s killer whales would be like today if the 60+ whales taken or killed during the capture era had been left to roam free.