Mammals

Overview

The false killer whale is a tropical to warm temperate species of dolphin that is not normally found in the Salish Sea. However, the species does occasionally appear in small numbers in Pacific Northwest waters of Washington and British Columbia, and even sometimes as far north as Alaska. They are highly social animals that typically feed on large pelagic fish, such as tuna and mahi mahi.

Status, trends & events

False killer whales are considered naturally rare, and there are no global estimates of abundance, but they generally occur in low densities across their extensive range (Zaeschmar and Baird 2025)

Overview

Humpback whales have made a remarkable recovery in Puget Sound and throughout the Salish Sea. While their numbers vary through the season, they can be seen in almost any month of the year. In essence, this has been a return to waters they formerly used prior to commercial whaling that wiped out the local population. Humpback whales around the world have made strong recoveries from whaling and now number some 30,000 in the North Pacific but there are some major differences in how populations in different areas have fared. Humpbacks are baleen whales that engulf small prey including krill

A 2025 paper in the journal Ecological Applications found that male cougars prefer to hunt in habitats where they are more likely to encounter humans. The authors hope the findings can be used to better understand and potentially minimize human-cougar conflicts.

The year 2025 has been fairly mystifying to experts who make their living studying natural systems in the Puget Sound region.

Unusual observations this year include record-low dissolved oxygen levels, unexpected gray whale visitations, and the sudden arrival of an astounding number of short-tailed shearwaters — a seabird almost never seen in Puget Sound.

Cold waters rising from the deep along the West Coast helped to rescue Puget Sound from an oceanic heat wave bringing warm-water troubles to other parts of the Pacific Ocean. But our inland waterway has had its own problems, and the reasons have been a challenge

Cuvier’s beaked whales are the most commonly stranded beaked whale along the outer coasts of Oregon and Washington. Although typically a creature of deep water, beaked whales have been documented in the Salish Sea at least once in the last fifty years, although which species was swimming in Puget Sound was not clear.

Adult northern fur seals spend more than 300 days per year (about 80 percent of their time) at sea. During the summer and autumn they intermittently fast while on land and feed at sea. During the winter and spring they are pelagic, occupying the North Pacific Ocean as well as the Bering and Okhotsk Seas. Northern fur seals are considered rare in the Salish Sea, and there have been 93 confirmed sightings of stranded animals in the state of Washington since 1982.