An endangered Pacific Northwest orca that made global headlines in 2018 for carrying her dead calf for over two weeks is doing so once again following the death of her new calf, in another sign of grief over lost offspring, researchers said. The mother orca, known as Tahlequah or J35, has been seen carrying the body of the deceased female calf since Wednesday, the Washington state-based Center for Whale Research said in a Facebook post. "The entire team at the Center for Whale Research is deeply saddened by this news and we will continue to provide updates when we can," the post said.
The research center said roughly two weeks ago that it had been made aware of the new calf. But on Christmas Eve, it said it was concerned about the calf's health based on its behavior and that of its mother, the AP reports. By New Year's Day, officials with NOAA were able to confirm that J35 was carrying her calf's dead body, said a research scientist with the federal agency. He said J35 was draping the dead calf across her snout or on top of her head, and that she appeared to dive for it when it sank from the surface. The calf was only alive for a "handful of days," he added.
"I think it's fair to say that she is grieving or mourning," a science director of SeaDoc at the University of California, Davis, said of J35. Similar behavior can also be seen in other socially cohesive animals with relatively long life spans, such as primates and dolphins, he added. Calf mortality is high: Only about 1 in 5 orca pregnancies result in a calf that lives to its first birthday, according to the Center for Whale Research. The center's research director, Michael Weiss, estimated that only 50% of orca calves survive their first year. The center described the death of J35's calf as particularly devastating—not only because she could have eventually grown to give birth and bolster the struggling population, but because J35 has now lost two out of four documented calves.
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