Whale Watching
Victoria, BC
Lovey’s female calf, born in July at Kamogawa SeaWorld, has been named Luna. The name was decided after a contest, where over 18,000 people submitted names.
Luna’s current measurements stand around 2.8m and 280kg.
Scientists want new name for mammal-eating orcas
ANCHORAGE, Alaska —
If whale expert John K.B. Ford has his way, school children one day will study a kind of North Pacific killer whale that preys on warm-blooded creatures - mostly harbor seals and sea lions, but also gray whales and seabirds.
They roam as far north as the Arctic Ocean and are now known as “transients” to distinguish them from fish-eating “resident” killer whales.
Ford and colleagues from Alaska to California want transient killer whales to be declared their own species, and they want them to have a new name: Bigg’s killer whales, in honor of Michael Bigg, the researcher whose observations off British Columbia and Washington state led to the identification of transients and whose mentoring inspired a generation of researchers still uncovering the mysteries of the animal at the top of the marine food chain.
