Endangered orcas now have more protected waters to roam.
On Friday, the National Marine Fisheries Service finalized new rules expanding the Southern Resident orca’s critical habitat from the Canadian border all the way down to Point Sur, California.
That adds almost 16,000 square miles of foraging area, river mouths and migratory pathways for the 75 remaining southern orcas in the resident J, K and L pods.
In recent years, the whales have been at their lowest levels since the 1970s.