FRIDAY HARBOR, Wash. -- In a way, they are the black-and-white poster-species for Puget Sound: killer whales.

Some experts fear that because of declining salmon population, pollution and global warming, our orcas could be extinct within 100 years.

Tuesday afternoon, the Puget Sound Partnership called a special meeting to discuss the recent loss of seven orcas.

In his series of Puget Sound in Peril reports, KIRO 7's Chris Egert travels to the San Juan Islands, the battleground in the fight to save our treasured whales.

In the San Juan Islands, it is all about the orcas.

Much of the economy is based on these magnificent black and white creatures.

People come from miles around to try and catch a glimpse from the rock cliffs of Lime Kiln State Park or catch a ride on one of dozens of whale tours like the Western Prince.

"Not just the whale watching industry, but all the other tourism based industries that tie in to it -- restaurants, hotels, a lot of the merchants who sell merchandise that have whales on it. It is kind of an icon of this island," said John Boyd of Western Prince Tours.

Boyd has spent most his life following pods of Orcas through the waters of the San Juans.

He loves them, loves to talk about them and loves to help people see them.

"Oh, it was wonderful. It was great to see the wildlife in the wild," said Roy Gustafson, a tourist.

Unfortunately, whale researchers believe the orcas' days are numbered.

Years of swimming in polluted waters have now started to take their toll.

"All the products of humans, for our benefit, that are long-lived and that don't break down in biological systems, are accumulating in the whales," said Ken Balcomb, Director of the Center for Whale Research in Friday Harbor.

Balcomb says each of these whales is now carrying toxins in its blubber. When salmon stocks are thin, the whales' bodies use their chemical-laced fat reserves -- a process which is hurting the whales abilities to breed.

Egert: "At what point does this wipe them out?"
Balcomb: "I think the reproductive capacity of this population will be lost within about 20 years at this rate."

He predicts our resident orca pods will be killed off in 50 to 60 years unless drastic action is taken to bring back the salmon population.

"We are going to bail out a banking system, or we are going to spend what everybody agrees is a -- incomprehensible amounts of money for these human mistakes we've made in other areas, and ignore the ones that in the long run, that are going to affect whether or not this is a place that even we can live in," says Balcomb.

If the fish come back, the whales will eat right again, their bodies won't rely on toxic blubber to survive, and they'll be able to safely reproduce.

John Stein is the Deputy Director of the Northwest Fisheries Science Center in Seattle.

Egert "How did things get to where they are at -- with the Chinook?"
Stein: "That's a good question, because it took us 100 years to get where we are, is one simple way to think about it. They were once abundant many years ago, we've had a lot of development, humans have moved in, things have changed."

And humans are doing their best to bring the habitat back.

From Snoqualmie scuba diver Mike Racine, to Edmonds environmental activist Ginny Arveson, their hope is that all of us live by their example, and do things cut down on storm water runoff -- to help the our native wildlife survive.

Because the whales are sort of like a canary in a coal mine -- an indicator species. What happens to them will eventually happen to all of us.

See an extended interview with Ken Balcomb of the Center for Whale Research, along with slideshows of Orcas and other wildlife.