When a killer whale washed up on a Fort Bragg beach April 18, the cetacean community knew what a tragic, yet critically important, opportunity this presented, thanks to new protocols and studies.

Scientists and whale workers from Humboldt State University, the California Academy of Sciences, the Marine Mammal Center and the National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration (NOAA) were quickly on scene. The Noyo Center for Marine Sciences acquired the carcass for display of the bones alongside the blue whale bones from that 2009 beaching.

This has been a busy time for marine mammal beachings, with five big whales washing up in three weeks in Northern California. There is no indication that the cases are related or that there is anything unusual out in the Pacific killing whales just now.

“Though there has been a high frequency of marine mammal deaths this season, each individual had a different cause of death. The deaths have not been related. The animals happened to have died in our area and are brought in by ocean currents,” said Haley Bowling, spokeswoman for Cal Academy.

The whale deaths are also not related to the big increase in recent sea lion and harbor seal deaths. Those marine mammals are dying of starvation. The whales have died from a variety of causes, but starvation is not suspected. The killer whale found in Fort Bragg had a belly full of seals, which may be weaker because so many are hungry or starving.

The finding of the orca might play a role in the current federal process of expanding the critical habitat of endangered Southern Resident killer whales. That process, to complete in 2017 is likely to impact on boating and how the Navy tests and trains off California.

The whale found in Fort Bragg was a transient or “lone wolf” orca, not a Southern Resident, genetic tests have now showed.

“Genetic tests tell us that he was a transient, likely from the Gulf of Alaska. There is a group of transient orcas that live up and down the California coast. They do travel this far south from Alaska. Transients feed on marine mammals, so it’s natural that this individual had some in its stomach,” said Bowling.

The necropsy studies being done by three different institutions could represent an unexpected break in understanding how orcas live and die- and how they utilize their habitat. The plan for further study of orcas through 2017 was detailed in a Feb. 24 federal register publication. NOAA and other federal agency are proposing expanding critical habitat for Southern Residents- now not much south of Puget Sound—to down all the way to Point Reyes- or possibly further. That could have an impact on U.S Navy testing and training, as well as other commercial and recreational boating activities.

Southern Residents are currently the only endangered killer whale. They don’t look different– to anybody but a scientist– than other resident killer whales.

Knowledge about orcas has increased massively over the past decade. When this reporter wrote about orcas in 2005, NOAA scientists said they were unsure any orcas still existed off California. Offering them evidence from local fishing boat operators, whale watchers and fishermen was rebuffed as “anecdotal.” Most of what is now known about orcas has been learned since then. Recent studies show that orcas may be disturbed not only by sonar but also by other boat noises. There has been absolute proof that the Southern Residents do migrate past Mendocino County, as well as go an equal distance north.

Several of the Southern Residents are fitted with satellite broadcasters. Numerous groups have gotten newly involved or much more deeply involved in orca research- as evidenced by the multi-agency response and research effort.

Moe Flannery and Sue Pemberton from Cal Academy lead their efforts while the Marine Mammal Center Stranding Coordinator is Barbie Halaska.

Mendocino County’s Naked Whale Research is one such newer non-profit organization, currently involved in an effort to set up a monitoring system where people could listen to the sounds of orcas vocalizing. Another is Howard Garrett and the Orca Network. The researchers have come to know each of the 81 Southern Resident orcas with four baby Southern Resident orcas having survived through last year and one older orca dying in December, Garrett said.

Something else that has been learned recently is just how rare beached orcas are. A 2013 study led by Michelle Barbieri of the UC Davis Orcas Island Office looked at all orca beachings back to 1927, finding that about 10 beach per year worldwide. The study said that although orcas are found worldwide, their bodies rarely wash up. There were just 19 orca beaching reported in California between 1927 and 2011. There were 371 orca strandings in 234 events over that time frame (with mass strandings accounting for the difference) Few stranded killer whales were studied until the endangered species status for the Southern Residents in 2005 (and in Canada in 2008). Then, a protocol was set up, which was what was observed in Fort Bragg last month. Most of the increased study has come in the United States and Canada, where the number of necropsies has increased by more than 1000 percent. In the rest of the range, including Japan, Russia, South Korea and Mexico there has been a smaller- but important increase. A recent mass stranding of orcas off Japan was studied under the protocol and some of the whales were saved. One thing that studies have found is a high levels of contaminants in the flesh of killer whales, especially PCB’s in Southern Residents. This is one of the mysteries that the teams hope to unravel with necropsies. The body parts are actually divided among the participating agencies. Studies of everything from orca teeth to the heart are now underway, taking advantage of the rare event that happened in Fort Bragg, an intact orca that had not decomposed.

Among all the information generated over the past decade about orcas, none rivals the recovery of an entire orca corpse from a Marin County beach in 2011. Having learned how rare the opportunity was, the California Academy reassembled the bones and put it on permanent display at its museum and on its website. The flippers articulate and the bones move in the way the creature once did.

Lots has been learned about transient killer whales versus the distinct pods of resident “killer whales”. Residents eat mostly salmon, while transients prefer other whales and seals and sea lions and sometimes sharks. Biologists estimate that the two races- residents and transients—have been separate for nearly 100,000 years.