Tahlequah, mother orca made famous after death of calf, has a new baby

SEATTLE – She is the mother orca who captured the world’s attention by carrying her dead calf for 17 days and 1,000 miles. But now, there’s a new baby by her side – a symbol of hope in this, our own season of renewal.

A new calf has been born to J pod, spotted for the first time just last Friday – swimming with Tahlequah, or J35, as she is scientifically known. Michael Weiss, research director of the Center for Whale Research, which catalogs the southern resident population, on Christmas Eve confirmed the birth to Tahlequah and named the baby J61.

The southern residents that visit Puget Sound live in the J, K and L pods. All of them are struggling for survival. They lack regularly available, adequate food, as chinook salmon, their preferred prey, also struggle against extinction. Vessel noise makes it harder for them to hunt. And they face the menace of pollution in their food.

Any new calf born to the endangered southern residents is good news, with just 73 whales in the current population, according to the July 1 census by the Center for Whale Research. But a new calf for Tahlequah carries a special significance. She is the mother orca who carried a baby inside her for 18 months, and in the summer of 2018 lost it within half an hour of its birth. Then she carried her baby’s body through the region’s waters day after grim day. “She was not ready to let go,” Weiss said.

Some saw a message to the region about the dire condition of these orca families, among the most endangered of animals. Grief at her loss touched people around the region and the world.

And yet, she went on to have another calf in 2020, her second son, which she is still caring for. She had birthed another calf in 2010.

This most recent birth, while great news for the pods, is not without its concerns. She and both of her older offspring were in subnormal body condition, meaning they were lean, when they were last surveyed in October, said Holly Fearnbach, marine mammal research director at SR3, a research and marine wildlife rescue organization.

“What you really hope to see is robust females giving birth that will have that extra fat reserve to make it through the demands of lactation,” Fearnbach said. “When you have a female with two offspring that still rely on mom, both in suboptimal condition, it is especially worrying that everyone will get enough food to make it into summer and the fall.”

In addition to Tahlequah’s condition observed last October, another concern, Fearnbach noted, is that the calf is likely premature.

Brad Hanson, biologist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Northwest Fisheries Science Center in Seattle, spent half the day Tuesday observing Tahlequah and the calf along with other members of J and K pods, as they swam and foraged between the south end of Whidbey Island and the Edmonds marina. Some of what he saw concerned him.

“The calf stayed down for protracted periods. Maybe it was nursing, or trying to nurse,” Hanson said. “But the amount of action where the calf was getting pushed around on mom’s head, it seemed more than I would have expected to see, and it just wasn’t very lively.” On the other hand, sightings of a calf so young are so unusual it is hard for scientists to know if the behavior is cause for concern, Hanson emphasized.

The calf is a female – which makes the calf even more valuable to the pods.

Hunger stalks the southern residents. About two-thirds of their pregnancies are lost because of nutrition stress, a 2017 paper showed. The findings are consistent with SR3’s health monitoring, done by noninvasive drone photography, to track changes in body condition over time.

Tahlequah’s life story shows what’s at stake. “She was one of the first that made people realize they have such a high level of reproductive loss; I don’t think people realized that,” Fearnbach said. “She was such an important whale for changing the way the world sees southern resident killer whales and brought a lot of attention to make sure they get enough food and limit vessel interactions.”

A big chum run this fall was a boon to the whales, who spent day after day foraging in Puget Sound.

It was mother orca Tahlequah who first got Brittany Philbin fascinated with the southern residents. She spends any free moment she can hoping to see them – going to the beaches where she lives in West Seattle, even riding the Edmonds ferry back and forth, just trying to catch a glimpse of them, Philbin said. On Friday, she decided to take the Edmonds ferry, hoping she might see a whale. When the captain veered the boat far off its normal course, she knew something was up.

Suddenly there was J pod, right by the ferry. She knew she saw Tahlequah, Philbin said, but didn’t even see the tiny fin until she checked her photos. “I just couldn’t believe it.”

That Tahlequah could rebound from her loss to bear more young is remarkable but also a signature of the ocean’s top predator. “She is a remarkable whale, but at the same time, I don’t think she is an unusual whale,” said Weiss, with the Center. “There probably are all kinds of stories like this in the southern residents we don’t know, her story is one we all saw.”

What he takes from it all is actually about us, not her: our duty to give these animals, so persistent and,resilient, what they need to survive. “J35 kind of drives that point home. There is still danger and peril and threats but also hope,” Weiss said. “If you give them half a chance, they will take it. We need to give them that chance.”

The young calf and new mother make it more important that recreational boaters give the southern residents plenty of space. State law requires that boaters avoid approaching the southern residents within 1,000 yards, and drone photography over the whales is not allowed. Turn off depth finders and reduce speed to 7 knots when within half a nautical mile.

You can help the southern residents by reporting violations of these rules as soon as possible to NOAA Fisheries’ enforcement hotline, (800) 853-1964, or the WDFW enforcement line at (877) 933-9847. You can also report violations at bewhalewise.org. For offenses in progress, officials ask that people call 911.

Scientists in research boats seen closer than 1,000 yards of the whales have federal permits that allow brief approaches for scientific observation.