[Desmond]

I'm back with another whale. This is AT6, or Egagutak. He and his family were caught in the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill, after which their little family of twenty two lost nine of their members. They have since fallen to a mere seven, nowadays, six of which - Marie, Paddy, Ewan, Chenega, Iktua, and Mike - stick together while Egagutak travels alone. They have not had a single calf born since the spill, and all of the females are now beyond reproductive age -- this group of transients is functionally extinct, and when the last one passes on, so too will their unique culture and fascinatingly mournful calls; a 2019 recording of Egagtuak demonstrates how his pitch falls at the end of every tone, instead of bending up like many of the typical orca sounds.

The AT pod stays in the Prince William sound and Kenai fjords, hunting mammals. They are believed to be a very polluted population, especially after having consumed prey that was contaminated by the oil spill, perhaps rendering them all sterile and stunting the growth of their youngest members at the time.

Egagutak is approximately 46 years old, and was believed to be 13 years old at the time of the spill. It is not known exactly how he is related to any of the remaining pod members - they may be his sisters and brothers, nieces and nephews, aunts and uncles, cousins... but they are all they have left.
Of his remaining family, Ewan is the youngest, at 38. He and Mike have notably stunted dorsal fins.