Surprising study finds more fish may not be key to orca survival [Video]

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.

Andrew Trites, the report’s co-author and the director of the marine mammal research unit at the university, said they didn’t find what they expected.

“It was surprising,” Trites said of his first reaction to their discovery.

“When you find what you don’t expect, then you look even harder at your data, and your first thought is, you must have done something wrong.”

This month’s latest census of the endangered southern residents found they number just 73, compared …