Survivorship pattern inaccuracies and inappropriate anthropomorphism in scholarly pursuits of killer whale ( ) life history: a response to Franks et al. (2016).

Franks et al. (2016) consider that the degree of error in estimated ages used to define survivorship patterns of northern and southern resident killer whale ( ) populations is of insignificant impact to estimates of the species' postreproductive lifespan (PRLS). We provide evidence that survival probabilities for killer whales using a dataset comprising estimated age animals differ significantly from that determined using data collected from known-age animals in the Pacific Northwest over the past 40 years.

Comparisons of life-history parameters between free-ranging and captive killer whale () populations for application toward species management.

Data collected on life-history parameters of known-age animals from the northern (NR) and southern resident (SR) killer whales () of the eastern North Pacific were compared with life-history traits of killer whales located at SeaWorld (SEA) facilities. For captive-born SEA animals, mean age and body length at 1st estrus was 7.5 years and 483.