Jan 17, 2014 10:36 AM EST By Staff Reporter, UniversityHerald Reporter

By swimming increasingly longer distances for food, orca "killer" whales that make their summer homes in Seattle's Puget Sound have expanded their natural habitat, the Jefferson Public Radio reported; thus, the reach of their federal protection should expand as well, according to the Center for Biological Diversity. The organization filed a petition on Thursday asking for increased protection rights to parts of Oregon, Washington, and Northern California.

"Our knowledge of their habitat in the ocean is increasing," Lynne Barre, a marine biologist and manager with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Seattle, told Jefferson Public Radio. "Gathering additional information about their coastal habitat was one of the priorities we identified when we listed the orcas for protection under the Endangered Species Act in 2005."

As per Barre, the federal government had been considering an expansion of ora-protected waters even before yesterday's petition based on her organization's tagging program and its tangible results. 

For the moment, however, it doesn't make sense that only the Puget Sound waters are currently under protection, according to Sarah Ulemann of the Center for Biological Diversity.

"They need to protect all of their habitat -- not just where the whales hang out in the summer," Ulemann told Jefferson Public Radio.

Though the orcas aren't being hunted, government protection forces other branches of the government, such as the navy, to consider orcas before expanding ports and testing sonar, among other off shore initiatives that could potentially disturb the whale population. Protection would also put restrictions on salmon fishing as salmon is the whales' primary food source.

"Not only on the whale but also on its habitat -- and if the impacts are too large they have to stop and mitigate, or lessen what those impacts are," Ulemann said.

Killer whales are the most widely distributed mammal population in the world, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Adminstration, which protects all orcas as endangered species.

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