Seven orcas disappear from Puget sound

"This is a disaster," Ken Balcomb, a senior scientist at the Center for Whale Research on San Juan Island, told CCN on Friday. "The population drop is worse than the stock market." Among those missing since last year's count are the nearly century-old leader of one of the three southern resident pods, and two young females who recently bore calves.

While the official census won't be completed until December, the number of live "southern resident" orcas now stands at 83.

The three pods, or families, that frequent western Washington's inland marine waters -- the J, K, and L pods -- are genetically and behaviorally distinct from other killer whales. The sounds they make are considered a unique dialect, they mate only among themselves, eat salmon rather than marine mammals and show a unique attachment to the region.

The population reached 140 or more in the last century, but their numbers have fluctuated in recent decades. They were listed as endangered in 2005.