Yifan Ling is a Seattle-based wildlife photographer specializing in the transient (Bigg’s) killer whales of the Northeast Pacific. With a background in engineering, he is known for his precision in identifying individual orcas and documenting their behavior through high-resolution imagery. Inspired by the decline of the AT1 pod after the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill, Yifan uses each encounter as an opportunity to collect detailed data for research. He donates his images royalty-free to institutions monitoring orca populations, with the goal of preserving their stories and supporting conservation efforts before other pods face a similar fate.