A baseline comparison of killer whale stranding deaths in the northeastern Pacific/Hawaii (IMAGE)
Caption
The 18-year-old male southern resident killer whale, J34, stranded near Sechelt, British Columbia on December 21, 2016. Postmortem examination suggested he died from trauma consistent with vessel strike. Other cases of vessel strike were identified in this study while an earlier study by Williams and O'Hara (2010) identified 10 killer whales that were struck by boats between 1995 and 2005, suggesting that vessel strike may be an under-appreciated but important threat to killer whales in the eastern Pacific.
Credit
Paul Cottrell / Fisheries and Oceans Canada
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CC BY - Redistribution allowed with credit
License
Licensed content