Assessing the influence of climate variability and resource competition on prey availability for southern resident killer whales ...
The fish-eating southern resident killer whale population (SRKW, Orcinus orca) inhabits the coastal waters of the northeast Pacific and was listed as Endangered in both Canada and the United States in the early 2000s. With only 75 individuals remaining, immediate research is needed to ascertain the...
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| Format: | Text |
| Language: | English |
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University of British Columbia
2024
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| Online Access: | https://dx.doi.org/10.14288/1.0442336 https://doi.library.ubc.ca/10.14288/1.0442336 |
| Summary: | The fish-eating southern resident killer whale population (SRKW, Orcinus orca) inhabits the coastal waters of the northeast Pacific and was listed as Endangered in both Canada and the United States in the early 2000s. With only 75 individuals remaining, immediate research is needed to ascertain the primary factors limiting this population. As it has emerged that food availability could be an important factor limiting the growth of this whale population, a bioenergetic model was built to assess their ability to meet energy needs from 1979 to 2020. This was a period of substantial changes in prey availability for SRKW, and results indicated a potential energy deficit in six of the last 40 years. Further, recent evidence suggested that limitations in their primary food source, Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha), could result from multiple factors. An ecosystem model was constructed to examine how marine mammal predation, fishing activities, and large-scale climatic patterns could influence Pacific salmon ... |
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