In early November, the roads on Alki Point in Seattle were clogged with traffic. In a flurry of adrenaline and enthusiasm, drivers unable to find parking abandoned their vehicles in the middle of the road. They were pointing, smiling, laughing, and exclaiming with joy as the 72 members of all three critically endangered Southern Resident Killer Whale pods surfaced, breached, and spy-hopped just offshore.
Over 150 people were watching this rare phenomenon known as a superpod. A local news outlet later remarked on the traffic jam with benign frustration, revealing that it’s hard for even the crustiest people to be angry when the Southern Residents visit.
But before the traffic jam heralded the arrival of these cetacean celebrities, many onlookers already knew they were in town because they had received alerts on their phones. They are members of the Whatsapp group Salish Wildlife Watch, founded by urban wildlife biologist Kersti Muul and with help from sightings coordinator Brittany Philbin, an emergency room nurse. They use WhatsApp to alert over 6,000 followers when whales are cruising by the city.
Muul started this grassroots wildlife conservation in her city in 2022 after years of “awe-inspiring moments with wildlife of all kinds.” A particularly transformative encounter in 2017 with a Bigg’s killer whale — another type of orca that preys on marine mammals, unlike the Southern Residents, which primarily eat fish — was instrumental in motivating Muul to figure out a way to get more people outside and aware of the incredible wildlife moments that often happen right next to Seattle’s busy pedestrian streets. She remembers standing on the beach at Constellation Park in West Seattle when this male orca (identified as T102) swam a few feet offshore. His six-foot-tall dorsal fin mesmerized her.
“It’s so wild,” Muul shares. “You’re in the city, but then there’s this thing happening to you where you’re out of your body, and you’re a tiny human. The ones that give you that–that check you into place — those are the ones that do it.” Muul believes encouraging people to cultivate such reverence for wildlife, especially in urban environments, is essential to animate broader conservation endeavors and protect nature.
After all, that’s how it happened for Philbin.
Philbin had always appreciated nature, but it primarily existed in the background of her daily life. This relationship changed in the summer of 2018 when she read about Tahlequah, the personal name given to one Southern Resident member of the so-called J pod. For 17 days, Tahlequah carried the body of her lifeless calf. This “tour of grief” made headlines worldwide and transformed Philbin’s perspective. Muul smiles as Philbin recounts this epiphanic trajectory and nods her head: “If you don’t know something exists, you can’t care about it. And if you don’t care about it, you can’t save it or help it.”
Caring about wildlife can be transformative, especially in an urban setting where the boundaries between nature and humans appear entrenched. Muul is emphatic that “Everybody deserves to experience this kind of awe.” She uses WhatsApp because it allows members to receive free real-time alerts, unlike other wildlife watch groups that may charge fees. Her desire is to reach as many people as possible. When group members believe they have spotted whales, they send direct messages, often with pictures, to Muul and Philbin. If confirmed, only Muul or Philbin send out a notification to the group.
Once notified, members can simply immerse themselves in the thrilling spectacle from the shores of a city park. This experience holds particular value for those who don’t have time to spend hours whale watching — maybe because they are juggling multiple jobs, maybe because they are caring for their family, or maybe because they are exhausted from trying to make ends meet in a notoriously expensive city. “I want those people to come out and see something cool, get out of their head, and let go of their stress,” Muul tells me.
Philbin wholeheartedly agrees. Now, her life revolves around the sea. She spends time “chasing whales” up and down the coast on her days off because it helps reset her nervous system. She has also found a like-minded community of others who are just as passionate about whales.
One afternoon, while looking for J pod, Philbin ran into Dr. Deborah Giles, the research director for Wild Orca, a local conservation organization based out of Friday Harbor, Washington. Giles’ scientific research on the Southern Residents is well known, as is her colleague, Eba. Philbin grins as she pulls out a printed photo of Eba — a conservation canine trained to sniff out whale scat. Eba’s special skill has landed her TV gigs on Disney+, PBS, the American Kennel Club, and local news agencies. Philbin’s photo is “signed” with a pawprint.
Eba, too, came to whales somewhat circuitously. A stray mutt from California, Eba made her way from one home to another until she found Giles in 2017. She took to scent-training quickly and is now the main whale-scat-sniffing dog for Wild Orca. Philbin puts the photo back in the manila envelope and laughs as she admits that, before 2018, there were probably moments when she was out for walks where “orcas [were] just swimming by, and I had no idea.” Thanks to the popularity of the Salish Wildlife Watch group, we are starting to learn what can happen if more of us are in the know.
Wildlife conservation is also a helpful byproduct of this volunteer-run city network. When Muul or Philbin send out a notification, the more experienced members alert ferries and other large vessels to the whereabouts of whales (often surprisingly hard to spot). These efforts are timely and crucial in oceans littered with human presence and detritus. In May, a cruise ship pulled into port in New York with the body of a Sei whale — the third largest animal on the planet — draped across its bow.
In August, a humpback whale was spotted making his way through the Salish Sea without a tail — likely lost to entanglements. A humpback’s tail contains the strongest muscles of any animal on earth, and scientists are unsure how long he will survive without it. Opening the Kitimat fjord system to liquefied natural gas tankers in British Columbia will increase shipping traffic by more than an order of magnitude. If no mitigation measures are taken, The North Coast Cetacean Society predicts that ship strike rates will increase fourfold for the humpback and fin whales that populate the waters.
These realities underscore the necessary work of grassroots conservation action in the city, like that of the Salish Wildlife Watch. Two days after the superpod sighting, L pod — a group of 33 Southern Resident Killer Whales — returned to Penn Cove for the first time since the 1970s. Historically, these marine species have avoided that area, and for good reason: it was a key site for the capture and removal of young killer whales, including the famous Tokitae. It took nearly 50 years, but according to The Orca Conservancy, the return of L Pod to this cove was a profound and historic moment. The exact reason for their return isn’t clear, yet their presence reveals the resiliency of these animals and reminds us of the importance of coexistence with nature.
In July 2024, when Philbin sent an alert that a humpback was in the middle of the bay just offshore from downtown Seattle, I grabbed my binoculars and headed to the water. Her message was not just an invitation to see the whale but also to keep the whale safe: “Group member reporting a Humpback whale (confirmed with photos) mid-Elliott Bay between grain silos and Alki point. Let us know if you see it so we can keep the ferries aware of its location.”
When I caught sight of the whale, he was surrounded by a cargo ship, a tugboat, several sailboats, and two smaller private vessels. He was breathing in 7–8-minute intervals: as he came up for a breath, we watched him puff short exhalations three or four times before diving. Sometimes, his exhalations were so small that I didn’t even see the mist. Instead, I relied on the sight of his massive gray form cresting through the water, the eponymous hump on his back the only way to spot him. As members up and down the waterfront updated Philbin on his whereabouts, I also submitted regular updates on Whale Alert, an app that collects real-time whale sightings to help reduce ship strikes on whales.
Those watching from the city shores may not be researchers or policymakers, but affection, devotion, and persistence are powerful tools for wildlife conservation. The Salish Wildlife Watch taps into this affective human response to wildlife and it makes its conservation efforts both accessible and replicable for other city people around the world.
