Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 1 of 1
Full-Text Articles in Life Sciences
Percussive Behavior In The Southern Resident Killer Whale (Orcinus Orca) Population At Lime Kiln Point State Park, Rylee Jensen
Percussive Behavior In The Southern Resident Killer Whale (Orcinus Orca) Population At Lime Kiln Point State Park, Rylee Jensen
Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects
The endangered Southern Resident Killer Whale (Orcinus orca, SRKW) is an iconic species in the Pacific Northwest. Although many ecological aspects of this population have been studied, including population dynamics, genealogy, diet, and habitat-use patterns, why SRKW perform above-surface "percussive" behavior such as breaching, cartwheeling, pectoral fin slapping, tail lobbing, and dorsal fin slapping remains unclear. In the present study, a) individual percussive behavioral data was recorded during the summer of 2016 to evaluate trends by age and sex class, and b) an existing long-term data set on SRKW was analyzed to compare the relationship between the seasonal …