An orca who drew international attention when she carried her dead calf for 17 days and more than 1,000 miles seven years ago is experiencing heartbreak all over again.
Scientists initially spotted the whale mom, known both as Tahlequah and J35, with a new female calf on Friday, Dec. 20 but were worried about the health of the baby when they got out on the water three days later.
By Wednesday, they were certain she was pushing around the baby whale’s carcass just north of Alki Point, a neighborhood in western Seattle and a peninsula that feeds into Puget Sound.
“We were able to confirm that J31 had in fact lost the calf and she was pushing it around on her head, much like what was happening in 2018,” Brad Hanson, a research scientist with the NOAA Fisheries Northwest Fisheries Science Center, said at a Thursday press conference.
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.
Hanson said they are “very encouraged” by the sight of another calf in the J pod because “it appears to be very robust” despite the Tahlequah’s unexpected loss.