SRKW Missing Orcas 2010

Missing and presumed dead are:

- L114, new calf born to L77 in February 2010, missing when the whales returned in June.

- L73/Flash, a male born in 1986, missing summer 2010.





- L74/Saanich, a male also born in 1986, missing summer 2010.



- K11/Georgia, a female estimated to be born in 1933, last observed in May 2010.



This brings the population of the Southern Resident orca community to about 87 individuals. J pod has 28 members; K pod has 19; and L pod has 40, including (approximately):
~9 post-reproductive females (over 40 years old)
~25 adult females (12-40 years old)
~19 mature or adolescent males (over 12 years old)
~21 juveniles (5-12 years old)
~13 calves (0-4 years old)

Greenland Defies IWC Rules

Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society: Greenland Defies IWC Rules by Authorizing Humpback Whaling before Hunt is Legal

Greenland obtained approval from the IWC last June to start a hunt of nine humpback whales a year but, despite acknowledging in a letter to the Commission that to begin the hunt before the mid-October deadline would be a violation of IWC regulations, it seems that the Greenland’s government has given way to hunters who want to start the killing much sooner. Greenland first sought a quota of humpback whales in 2007, arguing that its existing quota of fin and minke whales was inadequate to meet its subsistence needs. For three consecutive years, Greenland’s proposal failed, amid concerns about high levels of commercialization of whale meat intended to meet subsistence needs, and the government’s refusal to document who actually needs to eat whale meat for subsistence in Greenland. This will be the first humpback hunt in Greenlandic waters since 1986, after the quota was finally awarded in June in a controversial compromise in which Greenland gave up part of its fin and minke whale quota that it never used anyway.

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