Orcas Splash Back Into Local Waters

Tuesday, February 14, 2006
TACOMA, WASHINGTON - Four or five Orcas were spotted Monday splashing around in Commencement Bay.

Leslie Ann Rose, a senior policy analyst with Citizens for a Healthy Bay, said she saw the whales about 2:20 p.m. off Fireman’s Park.

“It’s kind of an exciting thing,” she said.

A resident who lives along Marine View Drive first reported seeing the whales about 1:20 p.m. between the mouth of the Puyallup River and Foss Waterway, Rose said. The resident saw two males and two or three females.

The Orcas would go under water for several minutes then emerge.

Rose said it’s been a long time since Orcas have been spotted in Commencement Bay and could only guess why they may have ventured into the waterway.

“They normally follow sources of food,” she said. “They are in no danger.”

Greg Schorr, a biologist at Cascadia Research, a nonprofit organization that studies and monitors marine mammals, said sightings such as Monday’s are not common, but not unusual either.

“They’ll come into areas where there might be seals around” to eat, he said. “They’ve been spotted in the south Sound before.”

Staff writer Paul Sand contributed to this report.

Source: The News Tribune