Once commonly seen off of Southern California, short-finned pilot whales disappeared from the area after a strong El Niño year in 1982 and 1983, and have since been encountered infrequently, primarily during warm-water years such as 1991, 1993, 1997, 2014, and 2015. It is not known whether the animals sighted more recently were part of the same population that was documented off Southern California before the mid-1980s, or a different wide-ranging pelagic population, therefore the status of this stock remains unknown.