Lack of salmon may not be the problem after all for endangered orcas, report suggests

A key assumption about dwindling numbers of southern resident killer whales pins the blame on a lack of salmon, but a study out of the University of British Columbia has found they have twice the number of chinook available in summer as their much healthier cousins, the northern residents.Researchers spent months tracking the two whale populations’ preferred food in the Salish Sea and the waters of northern Vancouver Island and their findings have now been published in the peer-reviewed research journal PLOS One.