Revised 12/15/2003 KILLER WHALE (Orcinus orca): Eastern North Pacific Offshore Stock
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 prefer the colder waters of both hemispheres, with greatest abundances found within 800 km of major continents (Mitchell 1975). Alo...
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Online Access: | http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.294.7163 http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/pdfs/sars/po2003whki-enos.pdf |
Summary: | 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 prefer the colder waters of both hemispheres, with greatest abundances found within 800 km of major continents (Mitchell 1975). 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 of Washington, Oregon and California (Green et al. 1992; Barlow 1995, 1997; Forney et al. 1995). Seasonal and year-round occurrence have been noted for killer whales throughout Alaska (Braham and Dahlheim 1982) and in the intracoastal waterways of British Columbia and Washington, where pods have been labeled as 'resident', 'transient ' and |
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