Orcas return to Penn Cove after 50 years

WHIDBEY ISLAND, Wash. — After more than 50 years, Southern Resident orcas were spotted in Penn Cove.

According to The Orca Network, the L Pod was spotted near the Captain Whidbey Inn on Nov. 4.

“A mother and her adult son paced back and forth there,” Howard Garrett with the Center for Whale Research told KIRO 7 News.

It’s the exact place where tragedy struck in the summer of 1970.

More than 80 orcas were rounded up, herded into nets, and taken into captivity—including Tokitae, who spent 53 years at the Miami Seaquarium and died before she could be returned to the Pacific Northwest.

“Tokitae’s family finally returning to the location of the traumatic captures sparks interest on the culture of orcas and how experiences are passed down through generations,” whales.org. wrote on its website.

Garrett told KIRO 7 that L25 and other L Pod members spent some time north of the mussel rafts last week— exactly where the corrals were built to separate mothers from their young.

In 2005, the National Marine Fisheries Service designated the Southern Resident orcas as an endangered species under the US Endangered Species Act.

Two adult males, K34 Cali, and L85 Mystery, as well as the loss of two newborn calves, J60 and L128 recently died. Another calf from the K Pod is feared dead because it hasn’t been seen since July.

The entire Southern Resident orca population is currently 72.

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