Huge chinook salmon are a favourite for the Pacific coast fishermen on both sides of the Canada-U.S. border, but this may change if a scientific panel links chinook and the survival of endangered southern resident killer whales.

Panel chairman Ray Hilborn said their job isn't to make a fisheries management recommendation but to evaluate the science behind an assessment that limiting the fishery will benefit the whales. The panel has about three dozen studies and reports to analyse before a decision is made at the end of 2012. Several studies have shown there's a correlation between poor survival of southern residents and low chinook abundance, if the panel recommends changes, the goal could be to implement the fisheries restrictions for the killer whale recovery plan starting as early as the 2013 salmon fishing season. Studies show that up to 90 per cent of the summer diet for the 88 southern killer whales is made of the large and fatty chinook and that a large percentage of those are returning to British Columbia's Fraser River. Experts estimate adult orcas need up to about 290,000 calories a day, 10 to 34 salmon a day, depending on the size and species, or over 800,000 salmon a year.

The Orca recovery program in the United States is part of an action plan to restore Washington state's Puget Sound by 2020. Plans are also in the works to keep the whales from oil spills and reduce contaminants. There's even a proposal to start tracking a whale with a satellite to see where the whales travel in the winter, solving one of the biggest mysteries. New regulations implemented this year in American waters limit the possibility of whale-vessel impacts. Limits were doubled to keep ships away from whales from 90 to 180 metres. Canadian no-go zones have been set at 100 metres. There are two different groups of resident whales off the B.C., Washington state coasts. The northern residents, which spend most of their known time in the waters off British Columbia, and the southern residents which split their time between Canadian and U.S. waters.

The northern residents, with a population of about 200 whales, are similar to southern residents and have the same diet. There are also about 500 other killer whales off the Pacific coast divided into transient and offshore groups that have a diet of mammals or sharks.