WASHINGTON, USA — A Southern Resident orca is feared dead after officials reported him absent from their last three encounters with his pod.
According to the Center for Whale Research, a 31-year-old male orca named Lobo has been absent from the organization's previous three encounters with the K pod.
Lobo, or K26, will likely be declared deceased on the Center's next census. That will bring the K pod down to 14 members. It brings the entire Southern Resident killer whale population down to 72, which is the lowest it has been since 2020.
The loss of K26 follows the loss of two other adult male orcas and the loss of two newborn calves.
Current state of Southern Resident Killer Whale population
Over the last 40 years, the population has seen a decline of 1.5% per year, according to researchers with Oceans Initiative.
"[Southern Residents] face a lack of genetic diversity, so the potential loss of another breeding male is a major blow to the population," Orca Conservancy staff wrote in a post about K26.
Of the 72 orcas living today, approximately a dozen females are able to reproduce and are carrying the future of the population. With a gestation period of 17 months, those 12 female orcas would likely have a calf every three to five years.
Officials say if the population can grow to 80-90 whales in the next 50 years, experts will breathe a sigh of relief.
According to Oceans Initiative, the three big factors that are contributing to the decline are lack of food, specifically Chinook salmon; noise interfering with the orcas' hunting abilities; and contaminants in the water and food impacting their health.