Southern Resident Orcas J Pod Family Tree

Hi, this is Matt Baker. On this channel, I've covered hundreds of different family trees. But one thing I've never done is cover the chart of a nonhuman family. Well, that's about to change because today I'm going to show you the family tree of the Jod, a group of 27 southern resident orcas who live in the Salish Sea near my home in Vancouver. Orcas, also known as killer whales, even though they are not actually whales, but rather dolphins, are some of the most intelligent non-human animals on the planet. Resident orcas, in particular, live in complex matriarchal societies, use tools, play games, show emotions, and even have language dialects that are unique to their pods. These orcas are called residents in order to distinguish them from the other main type of orca in the Pacific Northwest, the transients. You see, originally it was thought that only the resonant orcas actually resided in the Salish Sea, whereas the transient orcas just passed through. However, we now know that that's not true because the transients are here just as much as the residents are. For this reason, the transients are now increasingly known as bigs orcas, named after Michael Biggs, an early orca researcher. There are still some major differences between the two types, though, so much so that they do not interbreed or even communicate with each other. For instance, bigs orcas mainly eat marine mammals, travel in smaller groups that often change, and have simpler language. Whereas residents mostly eat fish, travel in stable family groups called pods, and have a more complex language. The resident orcas who live near Vancouver are known as southern residents in contrast to the northern residents who live well to the north. The southern residents are critically endangered and as of 2026, there are only 74 of them. They travel in three distinct pods, J, K, and L. J, which is the family we'll be looking at today, is the smallest and currently has only 27 members. Now, before I jump into their tree, I want to shout out today's sponsor, Ground News, which is the website and app that I use to keep up to date with what's happening around the world. Not just all the big political conflicts, but smaller stuff, too, like the latest on Timmy the Whale, who was stranded off the coast of Germany for over a month. What ground news does is pull headlines from hundreds of different sources from all over the world, including newspapers, podcasts, and websites. It then categorizes them on a continuum from left to right, so that you get to look at the same story from different angles. So, for example, you can see that this left-leaning source emphasizes the sad nature of the story and the human compassion it sparked, whereas this right-leaning source emphasizes the private initiative that is trying to save the whale. Of course, the best thing about ground news is the charts, such as this one showing the bias distribution, or this one showing which sources are the most factual based on third party rankings, or this one showing what percentage of the sources are independently owned or owned by the government or big business. Ground News also has a blind spot feed, which highlights stories that one side of the spectrum is barely covering at all. So you're not just trapped inside the version of events your usual media bubble wants to feed you. So don't wait. Subscribe now by going to ground. news/charts or by using the link in the description or pinned comment. If you use that address or link, you will get 40% off unlimited access to their Vantage plan. Again, that's ground. news/charts. Okay, let's now jump into the JPod family tree. I'm going to start with Moby Doll, who was the very first resident orca to be studied. Prior to Moby Doll, orcas were mostly feared and hated by humans with fishermen often shooting at them whenever they encountered one. But then in 1964, this attitude started to change. It began when the Vancouver Aquarium commissioned a team to kill an orca so that they could use it as a model for a new sculpture. But after being harpooned, the young orca survived and therefore the aquarium decided to keep it in a pen so that it could be studied as well as viewed by the public. Nicknamed Moby Doll, the male orca sadly survived in captivity for only 4 months. But by the end of those 4 months, the public perception of orcas had changed. In that short period of time, scientists learned that they were far more intelligent than previously thought, and the public came to see that they were actually quite gentle. Unfortunately though, the idea of protecting orcas within their natural environment was still a long way off. And instead, for the next decade or so, there was a rush to capture orcas and sell them to aquariums. The next J-pod member to suffer this fate was Shamu, a

young female who was captured in 1965 and sold to SeaWorld in San Diego, where she became the first orca to be forced to perform live shows. This original Shamu lived for only 6 years in captivity, but for the next 45 years, SeaWorld continued to use the name Shamu to promote their shows using other captive orcas. Now, we don't know the exact genealogy of either Moby Doll or Shamu, but they were probably either siblings or cousins of J1 and J4 who were from the same generation. As you'll notice throughout, each orca studied in the wild now has a numerical designation as well as a nickname. So, for example, J1 was also known as Ruffles because he had a distinctive ruffle on his dorsal fin. He and Granny designated J2, were the first two members of the Jpod to be studied in their natural habitat. They were usually seen together, so it was originally assumed that they were mother and son, although DNA later proved this not to be the case. Granny did however have a daughter nicknamed who was the mother of Kanuck and Samish. Kanuck was the only other member of Jpod to be captured and sold to SeaWorld. He unfortunately died after just 2 years. His sister, however, lived to be 42 and is today the namesake of the J14 Mataline, a group of six orcas who all descend from her. You see, currently the pod is divided into six groups called matral lines based on their matrinal ancestry. As I mentioned earlier, resonant orcas are matriarchal, which is why all of the main lines on this chart are pink. Pink representing females and blue males. It's easy to deduce who an orca's mother is because orca children tend to stay close to their mothers even as adults. Figuring out who the father is, however, usually requires DNA. This is why the paternal ancestry, represented on this chart by dotted lines, is only shown for the more recent generations. Although, take note that we don't yet know the paternity of the most recent births, as they have not yet been tested. So, for example, all of Samish's surviving children were fathered by an orca named Mega from the L Pod. As you can see, he fathered a lot of children during the '9s and 2000s. The only other male known to father this many children is Ruffles, who I mentioned earlier. In fact, he was the father of Sish and hence the grandfather of her three children. Now, all of the orcas in the J14 matine have indigenous names given to them by the coast sish people who live in the same area. So, hishka means thank you. Cichin means younger sibling. Tieum ingus means singing grandchild and suya kosh means reason for hope. You see she was born after the death of a young calf in this mataline called J55 or beetle whose exact mother and sex is unknown. As for subtles, she was named after Wayne Subtles, a linguist who specialized in the coast Salish language. And subtle's daughter, J63, the most recent J-pod member, has yet to be named as she just turned one year old last month, and traditional naming ceremonies usually don't take place until sometime after an orca's first birthday. Now, before I move on to the next matine, I want to go back to Granny for a moment because she actually lived until 2016 and at the time of her death was thought to be 105 years old. However, this was later disputed when a post-mortem calculated that her age at death was more likely to be somewhere in between 65 and 80 years old. Regardless, she did live to an old age and was observed helping to raise her great grandchildren, something very rare in animal species. Basically, only humans, orcas, and a few other citation species have females that go through menopause. So this is yet another reason why orcas are so special. Okay, we're now going to look at the J11 and J19 matrolines, both of which likely descend from J4, nicknamed Mama, who, as I mentioned earlier, was born around the same time as Moby Doll and Shamu. Although not 100% for certain, she is thought to have been the mother of both J11, Blossom, who passed away in 2008, and J19, Shachi, who is still living. Blossom currently has four surviving descendants. The two males, Blackberry and Mako, were fathered by Ruffles, whereas Succi was fathered by an unknown male. Although, we do know that same unknown male also fathered J26. Mike Mako was only 5 years old when his

mother Blossom died. So he was actually mostly raised by his sister Succi. Sushi and Mako are the only two J-pod members to have been given Japanese names. Both names being Japanese words for whale. In 2019, Tfina was born and later named after a town on Vancouver Island. She was originally thought to have been the daughter of Subtles, but was later determined to be the daughter of Succi. Moving on to the J19 Mataline which is led by its namesake J19 or Shachi. Although she is not the oldest female in the J pod, ever since Granny died, it has been Shachi who has been understood to be the overall matriarch of the entire Jod. Her only surviving child is a female named J41 or Eclipse, fathered by Ruffles. In 2015, she herself became a mother at just 10 years old, giving birth to J51, Nova. This was unusual as most orcas have their first child closer to age 15. Eclipse then went on to have two more children, J58 Crescent in 2020 and the yettobe named J62 in 2024. We now come to the J16 matraline which is named after and still led by J16 aka Slick although this branch can actually be traced back one more generation to Slick's mother J7 who was known as Susia after an island in Washington state. Slick who once had a brother called J3 Merlin is currently the oldest JPOD member being about 7 years older than Shachi. Nowadays, she has three surviving children and no grandchildren. It is in this matroline that we get our first examples of incest, something that is not normally a common thing with workers, which sadly means that it is likely the result of their numbers being so low. So basically, J26, Mike, who was named after Michael Biggs, is the father of his sister, J42, Echko, which means that Mike made it with his own mother. In addition to this, Mike also made it with his other sister J36 Alki to produce J52 Sonic. But sadly, Sonic passed away at age 2. The following year, this matroline lost yet another youngster when J50 aka Scarlet died at age three. She had originally been thought to be the daughter of Ali, but was later confirmed to be the daughter of Slick, which is notable because Slick was 42 years old at the time, making her the oldest known orca to give birth. Scientists were aware that Scarlet was sick for about a year before her death and tried to help by giving her antibiotics by dart. Incredibly, exactly one year to the day after her death, Slick, Mike, Ali, and Ekko were seen leaving the rest of the Jpod behind and traveling to the exact spot where Scarlet died in order to pay the respects. The final two matrolines, J17 and J22, are both thought to have descended from J9, nicknamed Nia, who may actually have been older than Granny. Nia gave birth to J5 Saratoga, who in turn gave birth to J17, nicknamed Princess Angeline after the daughter of Chief Seattle. Princess Angeline lived until 2019 and near the end of her life was taken care of by the Lumi Nation of Washington State, who would row out close to her and feed her fresh salmon. The Lumi Nation have a special relationship with the southern resident orcas going back thousands of years. In fact, in their language, they call them quao mention, which literally means our relatives who live under the waves. Princess Angeline's first child was a daughter called J28 or Polaris. And it's here that we get another rare example of incest. You see, Polaris's father was Ruffles, but the father of her firstborn child, J46, or Star, was also Ruffles. Unfortunately, Polaris died in 2016 due to complications arising from the birth of her second child, J54 Dipper, who also died shortly thereafter. The most senior female in this matroline is therefore now J35 or Tlequa, which means mother of waters. These days, she is perhaps the most well-known member of the Jpod. This is because although she has two living children, both males, J47 Notch and J57 Phoenix, she also lost two children, both females. The first was Tilaqua, which means little Tilaqua. When she lost the child shortly after birth in 2018, she carried the child's body on her nose for 17 straight days

traveling over 1,600 km in an act of grieving that drew international attention. In 2020, she gave birth to J57, who was named Phoenix in order to symbolize rebirth and hope. But then in 2024, she lost another daughter and once again carried her on her nose, this time for 11 straight days. The final and smallest mataline is J22, which has only two members, J22, nicknamed Oreo, and her second son, J38, Cookie. Previously, Oreo did have a sister called J20 Ewok. Both of them being the daughters of J10, Tacoma. But sadly, Ewok died in 1998, 2 years after giving birth to J33, Rapsidity. At this point, Rapsidy was adopted by Oreo, who had just given birth to J34, Double Stuff. Unfortunately though, both Rapsidy and Double Stuff died at age 18. Rapsidity due to pregnancy complications and Double Stuff from being mistakenly hit by a vessel. So, as you can see, between the years 2014 and 2024, the J-pot lost 13 members, including seven young calves, which just goes to show why they, as a group, are so endangered. However, with the recent births of J62 and J63, both of whom have now made it past their first birthdays, things are looking a bit better. Fortunately, now that we have a better understanding of just how amazing these fellow citizens of Earth are, governments are starting to put into place several more measures to help protect them, such as limiting noise from vessels, increasing their food sources, and reducing water pollution. Now, before I go, I do want to mention a few other famous orcas who were not members of Japot, but are fairly wellnown. First of all, there's Kiko, who starred in the 1993 movie Free Willie. Now, while the orca in the movie was portrayed as being from the Pacific Northwest, Kiko, who played Willie, was actually from the waters near Iceland. He was captured there in 1979 at the age of three and then went on to live in aquariums in Iceland, Canada, and Mexico before starring in the film Free Willie. Now, because of the movie, a movement was started to actually free the real Orca, who played Willie, aka Kiko. It took some time to prepare him for this, but Kiko was eventually released back into the waters near Iceland in 2002, although he continued to be closely monitored after this. Unfortunately, he died after just one year of freedom. Then there's Tleum, another Icelandic orca who this time was featured in the 2013 documentary Blackfish. Blackfish highlighted the trauma experienced by orcas in captivity as well as the dangers they posed to humans when treated this way. Tleakum in particular was involved with the death of three humans, two of whom were trainers. The documentary led to a massive public backlash against SeaWorld, where most captive orcas in the US live, resulting in the company announcing in 2016 that they would be immediately halting their breeding program and slowly phasing out all orca shows. Finally, there's Lolita, also known as Tokit or Toki. She was a member of LPOD and was captured in 1970 during the infamous Pen Cove operation, the largest ever orca capture in history. At Pen Cove, more than 80 orcas were herded into nets, including Granny and Lolita. But whereas Granny was released because she was deemed too old, Lolita along with six others were kept and sold to aquariums. Sadly, five orcas died that day, something that was hidden at the time, but then came to light several months later. This sad event led to a turn in public opinion, though, and by 1976, orca captures were banned in both BC and Washington. It was too late for Lolita, though, and she ended up living at the Miami Sea Aquarium for the next 53 years. Near the end of her life, there was a movement to have her return to her native waters, but unfortunately she died in 2023 before this could happen. However, her ashes were given to the Lumi nation who scattered them into the Salish Sea during a special ceremony. Okay, so that was a look at the family tree of the Jpod who are fortunately now treated much better than they were in the past. Hopefully in the future, we humans will continue to

develop better relationships with those we share this planet with. Thanks for watching.