“Tahlequah,” which famously carried her dead calf on her head in mourning for 17 days through the Salish Sea off British Columbia in 2018, has given birth again. Tahlequah, known to scientists as “J35, was spotted in the Haro Strait, northwest of Seattle, earlier in the week.
We are pleased to report a NEW calf in J pod! J35's new calf appeared healthy and precocious, swimming vigorously alongside its mother in its second day of free-swimming life.https://t.co/6bSnvzRAju pic.twitter.com/ctxRQqPnn8
— Whale Research (@CWROrcas) September 6, 2020
The whales have been struggling to endure a variety of troubles — a scarcity of high-quality prey to eat, noise pollution from ships and boats in their habitat, and toxic pollutants that make their way up the food chain to them. Many of the population’s pregnancies fail, and about 40 percent of the calves who are born die in their first year. Tahlequah was spotted she was mostly separate from the other whales and “very evasive” as she crossed the border into Canada.
Orcas sometimes do that for a little while, but J35’s journey of apparent grief lasted 17 days and covered about 1,000 miles, attracting wide attention at a moment when government agencies were grappling with how to alter the population’s downward trajectory.
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