The Salish Sea holds the densest concentration of transient and resident orcas in North American waters. Three resident pods—J, K, and L—number roughly 75 individuals and spend spring through autumn hunting Chinook salmon along the continental shelf between Admiralty Inlet and the Canadian border.
Transient Bigg's orcas, numbering over 300 across the inland sea, patrol year-round for harbor seals and porpoises. Humpback whales, absent from these waters for seven decades after commercial whaling, have returned since 2010; the Salish Sea now logs over 30 individual humpbacks each season, identified by fluke patterns cataloged by the Cascadia Research Collective.
Seattle whale watching tours depart from Anacortes, Everett, and downtown Seattle, converging on feeding grounds west of the San Juan archipelago. Vessels range from 30-passenger rigid inflatables to 150-capacity catamarans. Naturalists aboard identify cetaceans by dorsal fin shape, blow pattern, and surfacing interval. The orca's six-foot dorsal fin, visible two miles distant on calm water, signals a pod's location before the first breach. Gray whales migrate past Race Rocks each March and April, 20,000 animals traveling from Baja lagoons to Alaskan feeding grounds at a pace of 75 miles per day.
The inland sea's 6,000 harbor seals haul out on granite islets and driftwood rafts at low tide. Dall's porpoises, the fastest small cetacean, ride bow waves at 34 knots. Bald eagles nest in Douglas fir snags above tide lines; 200 breeding pairs occupy the San Juan Islands alone. Steller sea lions, each male weighing 2,400 pounds, congregate on navigation buoys off Cattle Point. Tufted puffins and rhinoceros auklets dive for sand lance in rip currents where the Strait of Juan de Fuca meets Haro Strait. Weather shapes every departure—morning fog burns off by 10:00, and afternoon westerlies build three-foot chop after 14:00. Hydrophones lower into the water column capture orca calls at frequencies between 500 Hz and 25 kHz, a sonic landscape older than the last ice age.
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