SRKW Annual 2022

Here is our Salish Sea sightings map for all Southern Resident killer whale reports from 2022! A sighting is defined as a unique report of a unique group of whales on a unique day, with each dot representing where a group was first reported on a given day. The colors correspond to each season, with blue dots for winter, green for spring, yellow for summer, and red for fall.

This map depicts the 193 Southern Resident sightings in 2022, compared to the 1222 sightings of Bigg's killer whales during the same 12 months!

Looking at regional habitat use by season, I see a lot of winter and spring sightings around the San Juan Islands, whereas all the Puget Sound reports come from the fall and winter. There are also a low number of summer sightings overall, representing the continued reduced presence of the whales in what used to be their core summer habitat. You can also see that the whales made several forays to the northernmost reaches of the Salish Sea this year, especially in the fall.

As with Bigg's, it takes a huge community to successfully track the Southern Residents over so wide an area, so a big thank you to everyone who shares reports as well as photos, videos, and hydrophone recordings to help confirm not only ecotype but which specific pods are present. As the endangered Southern Residents continue to shift their habitat usage over time, this type of data is so important to be tracking and it wouldn't be possible without all of you. And of course thank you to Tomis Filipovic for continuing to create these lovely maps for us all to enjoy!

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