Orca That Carried Dead Calf For 1,600 Km Gives Birth To New Baby

An orca, who carried her dead calf for 17 days and swam over 1600 km of ocean in 2018, has given birth to a new baby, according to the Center for Whale Research.

A Facebook post said the calf was born to Tahlequah, known to researchers as J35. It was spotted for the first time on December 20 while swimming along with J pod in the Puget Sound area, CNN reported.

“The Center for Whale Research has received additional information on the new calf born into J pod. On Monday, 12/23, a team of researchers, including scientists from NOAA’s Northwest Fisheries Science Center, were able to conduct longer-term observations of the new calf. These observations allow us to more confidently assign the new calf’s mother as J35 and give it the alpha-numeric designation J61,” read the post by the Center for Whale Research.

The team photographed the calf’s underside, confirming it was a female. “The team, including multiple experienced killer whale researchers, have expressed concern about the calf’s health based on the behavior of both J35 and J61. Early life is always dangerous for new calves, with a very high mortality rate in the first year. J35 is an experienced mother, and we hope that she is able to keep J61 alive through these difficult early days,” it added.

Michael Weiss, research director of the Center for Whale Research, told CNN that the researchers were initially not able to confirm the identity of the calf, but after observing it “confidently,” they assigned Tahlequah as the mother and the baby as alpha-numeric J61.

A nature enthusiast and photographer, who captured the calf, said he was shocked after seeing the calf. “I was just looking through my photos to see who the whales were that passed close to the port side of the ferry I was on and noticed a much smaller dorsal on one of the photos.” 

After scrolling through the series, the photographer realised “it was very tiny calf, much smaller than any of the known young ones in the group.” 

Tahlequah, or J35, made headlines six years ago after she swam with the body of her calf for about 1,000 miles of ocean. The calf had died within hours of birth. She swam with the body for more than two weeks to prevent it from sinking.

Two years later, she gave birth to her first known baby since the incident, J57, in 2020. She is also the mother of another orca named J47.