Astrid M. van Ginneken, David K. Ellifrit and Robin W. Baird
Center for Whale Research, Friday Harbor, WA. 1998.
This catalogue of 75 transient killer whales documented in the Haro Strait area is available for a small cost from the Center for Whale Research, P.B. Box 1577, Friday Harbor, WA 98250 (e-mail: orcasurv@rockisland.com)
Introductory text from the catalogue is presented below.
This "field guide to transient killer whales in the Haro Strait area" differs from the Orca Survey "field guide to southern resident killer whales" in several ways. While more than 75 individual transients have been documented in this area over the last 20 years, only about 20 specific individuals use this area almost every year. Many of the other individuals in this guide have only been seen on one or two occasions. Those individuals which are seen most frequently are presented in the first few pages. All of these whales form part of a much larger "community" of transient killer whale, which range from California north to Alaska. Unlike residents, transients typically travel in small groups, ranging from lone animals (usually adult males) to temporary aggregations of up to 15 or more individuals. The usual size of a transient group is 2-4 individuals. Like residents, many of the transient groups are very stable, but some dispersal of individuals occurs from transient groups. Hence, the presence of several individuals in one grouping in this catalogue should not imply that these individuals are always seen together. Similarly, when an individual disappears from its group, it may not be possible to tell whether that individual has died or dispersed (see below). Thus, this catalogue contains all transients documented from this area, even though some of these individuals have not been seen anywhere throughout their known range for many years (e.g., Q7, Y2, M1). The naming system for transients is less straight-forward than for residents; in fact, since transients range along the entire Pacific Northwest coast, individuals have been given names by several different research groups, and we have tried to include these names when known. This naming system is arbitrary, that is, two individuals which share a common letter designation are not necessarily related.