KILLER WHALE (Orcinus orca): West Coast Transient Stock Revised 10/22/04 STOCK DEFINITION AND GEOGRAPHIC RANGE

• Main Author: R. B. Outlaw
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Pacific; Killer Whale; Orca; Orcinus orca; Killer whale
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.219.5886; http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/pdfs/sars/ak2005whki-wcot.pdf

Killer whales have been observed in all oceans and seas of the world (Leatherwood and Dahlheim 1978). Although reported from tropical and offshore waters, killer whales occur at higher densities in colder and more productive waters of both hemispheres, with the greatest densities found at high latitudes (Mitchell 1975, Leatherwood and Dahlheim, 1978, and Forney and Wade in press). Killer whales are found throughout the North Pacific. Along the west coast of North America, killer whales occur along the entire Alaskan coast (Braham and Dahlheim 1982), in British Columbia and Washington inland waterways (Bigg et al. 1990), and along the outer coasts