WA - Orca mother carries dead calf for fourth day, San Juan Islands

[2Hope4]

September 14: The response team continues to search the air and water extensively today near where J50 was last seen. The U.S. Coast Guard and the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife are providing dedicated assets to the search. Contingency planning to rescue J50 is continuing in the event she is found and rescue operations are appropriate.

September 13: Unfortunately J50 has not been seen in several days of favorable conditions and sightings of her pod and family group, including J16, her mother. Teams were on the water searching yesterday and are increasing a broad transboundary search today with our on-water partners and counterparts in Canada. We have alerted the West Coast Marine Mammal Stranding Network, which is a tremendous resource in such situations. Airlines flying in and out of the San Juan Islands are also on the lookout.
Updates on Southern Resident Killer Whales J50 and J35 :: NOAA Fisheries West Coast Region

 

[2Hope4]

I just read an update they aren't going to look for her anymore. If the coast guard or others see her, they can let NOAA know.

 

[2Hope4]

After dedicated search efforts for J50 over the last two days, J50 is still unaccounted for. The team ended its active search last night, but the West Coast Marine Mammal Stranding Network remains on alert, and this is a time of year with many researchers on the water. The U.S. Coast Guard will also stay on watch, and will issue a notice to mariners to be on the lookout. We remain grateful to our many partners, and everyone who has lent support to the response and search and to the recovery of the endangered Southern Resident killer whales. J50 and J35 have shown a light on recovery at a time when it is more urgent than ever. Thank you. More information at bit.ly/NOAAJ50J35

NOAA Fisheries West Coast

 

[DakotaMayi]

This isn’t related to the Orca in the San Juan Islands, but this is the news this morning about Morgan. And I wanted to post it because I think my comment about letting nature take its course sounded cold hearted, but this story is the reason why I’m always nervous about humans intervening.

Orca Morgan gives birth at theme park, Loro Parque

On the morning of Saturday, September 22nd, Morgan gave birth. An orca being born should be a happy event, but no one is celebrating, except perhaps those that will make money from exploiting this new little calf.

In November 2011, a wild orca from Norway was shipped to a marine park in Tenerife in the Canary Islands. Morgan, as the young female was called, had been found alone and malnourished off the coast of the Netherlands in 2010 and taken to the dolphinarium in Harderwijk to be nursed back to health and then released back into the wild.

Subsequently, however, and the subject of much controversy, Harderwijk then announced that she wasn't suitable for release.

Instead, Morgan was shipped to Tenerife where she is held in captivity at a theme park called Loro Parque, together with five other orcas.

Morgan’s calf is unlikely ever to be a candidate for release, because he or she (we still don’t know) will have mixed genes - the male orcas at Loro Parque are of Icelandic origin while Morgan comes from a population living in the waters off Norway. To make things even more difficult, Morgan wasn't with her family group in the wild long enough to learn how to raise a calf – she was practically a baby herself when she was taken into captivity. Previous calves born at Loro Parque have had to be hand-reared by staff (one died) and also Loro Parque claims that Morgan is deaf.

This is why. Because I have no trust that people will do what they say they will do. The scientific community will stop at anything before saying that any other species than humans, speak languages. But the orca do speak languages. Languages that are different from each other dependant on where they are from. Morgan was supposed to be nurtured and released. But now, she is trapped, she has to perform, she cannot communicate with the other orca in her tank and she now has a baby which she likely has no knowledge of how to bring up. And now that baby is trapped. And it will go on and on and on if they keep breeding.

 

[DakotaMayi]

And, as expected, Loro Parque have confirmed that they have separated the baby away from Morgan. Away from it's mother. So that they can bottle feed it. These animals are highly emotional and do not do well with separation. Albeit they have separated the baby and it's Mom because Morgan is unable to care for it, it is their own doing that has left Morgan so ill equipped to be a Mom. She had no one to show her.

 

[DakotaMayi]

Loro Parque ended their statement with "enjoy the show". So disgusting.

 

[Seattle1]

Orca Tahlequah is a mother again

Sept 7, 2020

Mother orca Tahlequah has had her baby.

The endangered southern resident killer whale, J35, touched hearts in the Pacific Northwest and around the world in August 2018 when she lost a calf that lived only a half-hour. She carried the calf for 17 days and 1,000 miles, refusing to let the calf go.

“It’s fabulous news,” Ken Balcomb, founding director of the Center for Whale Research, said of the new baby, which he documented Saturday in the San Juan Islands. The gender is not yet known.

Tahlequah and several of the southern resident orcas were known to be expecting, after a recent drone survey of the orcas by John Durban, senior scientist at Southall Environmental Associates and Holly Fearnbach, marine mammal research director of the nonprofit SR3.

The photo surveys are used to assess body condition of the southern residents over time.

 

[Doghairrules]

Orca Tahlequah is a mother again

Sept 7, 2020

Mother orca Tahlequah has had her baby.

The endangered southern resident killer whale, J35, touched hearts in the Pacific Northwest and around the world in August 2018 when she lost a calf that lived only a half-hour. She carried the calf for 17 days and 1,000 miles, refusing to let the calf go.

“It’s fabulous news,” Ken Balcomb, founding director of the Center for Whale Research, said of the new baby, which he documented Saturday in the San Juan Islands. The gender is not yet known.

Tahlequah and several of the southern resident orcas were known to be expecting, after a recent drone survey of the orcas by John Durban, senior scientist at Southall Environmental Associates and Holly Fearnbach, marine mammal research director of the nonprofit SR3.

The photo surveys are used to assess body condition of the southern residents over time.

This makes me ridiculously happy. I have read the reports that the new calf is male and playful and healthy.

 

[imstilla.grandma]

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.

In 2018, researchers observed J35 pushing her dead calf along for 17 days, propping it up for more than 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers). The calf had died shortly after it was born, and the mother and her closely knit pod of whales were seen taking turns carrying the dead body.

An orca that carried her dead calf for weeks in 2018 is doing so once again

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.

www.wtoc.com

 

[Knox]

I've been following this on my Facebook group. Such a remarkable, heartbreaking, display of maternal grief. It makes me want to cry ...

 

[Seattle1]

Orca who carried dead newborn for weeks has lost another calf and is traveling with it

Tahlequah, an orca that carried her dead calf for 17 days and more than 1,000 miles in 2018, lost another calf recently and is grieving the death in a similar way.

www.usatoday.com

1/3/2025

Tahlequah is one of 73 endangered Southern Resident orcas, a killer whale population that lives in three pods − J, K an L − along the Salish Sea near British Columbia and Washington State. Contaminants, noise, prey availability and inbreeding are among the threats Southern Residents face.

As a result of this most recent death, Tahlequah has lost two out of four documented calves – both of which were female, according to the Center for Whale Research. Tahlequah last gave birth to a male calf in 2020.

"New Year’s Eve 2024 was a day of extreme highs and lows. We have confirmation of another new calf in J pod, but sadly, this was combined with the devastating news that J61 has not survived," the center wrote in a Wednesday social media post.

 

[Seattle1]

Orca who carried dead newborn for weeks has lost another calf and is carrying it again

An orca mother carried her dead calf with her for miles in 2018. Now, she is repeating the behavior with a newly deceased baby whale.

www.nbcnews.com

Jan 2, 2025

The Summary​

• An orca that carried her dead calf with her for days in 2018 appears to be repeating the behavior with a newly deceased baby whale.
• Scientists think the killer whale is likely to be expressing grief.
• The orca is part of a critically endangered subpopulation known as southern resident killer whales.

 

[Seattle1]

Orca Known for Carrying Her Dead Calf for 17 Days in 2018 Is Grieving the Loss of New Calf in the Same Way

Tahlequah, an orca whale who carried her dead calf for 17 days in 2018, is grieving another loss. On Jan. 3, researchers confirmed that Tahlequah lost another calf and is once again carrying her baby's body through the ocean, unable to let go.

people.com

1/3/25

Researchers spotted Tahlequah the killer whale swimming with her new calf, J61, on Dec. 20. The baby whale died a little over a week later

 

[Seattle1]

Jan 2, 2025

Orca whale Tahlequah once again carries her dead calf in Puget Sound​

 

[Seattle1]

12/23/34 -- newborn!

 

[tlcya]

poor Tahlequah. This mother's heart hurts for hers. She feels deeply her loss. IMO she is more mother than so many of the mothers we read about here who put their children into the hands of the untrustworthy, or those mothers who harm their own young.

And here is a mother, we know has experienced loss in the past, and who felt it so deeply she couldn't let her child go, going through that pain once again. Makes me think how lucky some of our little ones here would have been to have such pure love from a mother. A love like this.

 

[imstilla.grandma]

 

[Seattle1]

Mother orca Tahlequah still carries dead calf after 11 days - The Daily Chronicle

SEATTLE — Mother orca Tahlequah is continuing to carry her burden of grief: a dead calf that she now has been refusing to let go of for at least 11 days. Tahlequah is the orca whose story …

www.chronline.com

Jan 11, 2025

SEATTLE — Mother orca Tahlequah is continuing to carry her burden of grief: a dead calf that she now has been refusing to let go of for at least 11 days.

Tahlequah is the orca whose story shocked the world in 2018 when she carried a calf that lived only half an hour for 17 days and more than 1,000 miles.

The orca and her family, the southern resident J pod, were seen in Haro Strait off San Juan Island on Friday morning before they headed west toward the ocean.

 

[Knox]

“If ever there has been an individual animal that has without a doubt demonstrated grief at the loss of an offspring, it’s Tahlequah. And here she is doing it again,” said Deborah Giles, science and research director for the research nonprofit Wild Orca.

Every time the calf slides off her head, Tahlequah has to make the decision to dive down and pick it up again before the waves carry the calf away. Though the calf weighs hundreds of pounds, it is not the physical effort so much Giles worries about for such a strong animal but the toll it takes on J35 because she can’t forage when she’s carrying the calf, Giles said. She also worries about the orca’s mental health.

Mother orca Tahlequah still carries dead calf after 11 days - The Daily Chronicle

SEATTLE — Mother orca Tahlequah is continuing to carry her burden of grief: a dead calf that she now has been refusing to let go of for at least 11 days. Tahlequah is the orca whose story …

www.chronline.com

Heartbreaking.