(Photo courtesy NOAA Fisheries, taken under NMFS Permit #27052 on January 1)

By Tracy Record
West Seattle Blog editor

When researchers got a look at the endangered Southern Resident Killer Whales’ newest calves on New Year’s Day, they were off West Seattle.

One of those calves, J61, has died and is being carried by her mom, J35 “Tahlequah,” as shown in the NOAA photo above, the same orca who carried a dead calf for 17 days in 2018. The other new calf, J62, seems “robust” so far, according to the researchers and other experts who just spent an hour talking with journalists on a conference call in which we participated.

(Monday photo of J62, by Tisa Annette, from land near Point No Point)

The federal researcher who was out with the whales on Wednesday was NOAA’s Brad Hanson (who has spoken in West Seattle at The Whale Trail‘s gatherings).

Though researchers weren’t able to get out on the water between December 23 – when J61 was newly born – and December 31, they believe she lived just a handful of days and had died by the New Year’s Eve sighting, at which J35 (who had a still-alive calf between the two who died) was “pushing something around.” They might not get many more chances to observe the whales, as this is the time of year when they depart for fishing grounds elsewhere.

In response to our question about the sighting locations yesterday, Hanson said they first saw J35, with J61 on her head, north of Alki, and left her south of Alki Point – ee explained that they try not to stay with the whales too long, for fear of disrupting them. That’s another reason they won’t be trying to recover J61 for a necropsy – J35 is very attached to her, and by the time she abandons the calf, it will be too late in the decomposition process – even if her carcass was recoverable – for it to be of value.

What’s the difference between the behaviors of the two calves, comparing the original live sighting of J61 and the new sighting of J62? Even before J61 died, J35 seemed to be pushing her around, Hanson said, while J62 appears to be swimming and surfacing “normally.” That calf was seen Wednesday near the Vashon/Fauntleroy ferry lanes. (That’s the second part of this two-part NOAA video package.)

(Video courtesy NOAA Fisheries, taken under NMFS Permit #27052 – view fullscreen here)

They’re not sure yet who its mom is; West Seattle-based researcher Maya Sears reported that it’s “still most closely associating with J19 and J41,” and NOAA’s Candice Emmons says “Most likely J41 is the mother and J19 is the grandmother, given their ages,” and there also was an indication in September that J41 was pregnant.

J61 and J62 were the first J-Pod calves since 2022, when J59 – who is still alive – was born. The first year is the biggest hurdle for calves, researchers say, but the endangered Southern Resident Killer Whales – now numbering 73 – have more hurdles than other orcas; the Northern Residents and Transients are both reproducing far more successfully and prolifically, according to the researchers. They don’t know the exact survival rate of Southern Residents, because they believe some calves are being born and dying without researchers ever having seen or learned of them.

(Photo courtesy NOAA Fisheries, taken under NMFS Permit #27052 on January 1)

So what exactly is the carrying-dead-calf behavior about?

The researchers say “grieving, or mourning” is a fair assessment – “we do see this behavior in other long-lived, socially cohesive animals.” It’s probably “social” behavior, they added, as “calves become central to the social nature of the pod.” But it’s not without risks to the bereaved mom – what she’s doing is likely taking a lot more energy, and researchers aren’t certain whether she’s able to forage for food while doing this.

To grow the population, said NOAA’s acting recovery coordinator Grace Ferrara, they are trying a “multi-pronged approach.” Increasing the salmon supply for the Southern Residents is important. So is noise reduction – as part of that, our state’s new rules for boaters took effect – 1,000 yards away from the whales.

They are also working on better ways to monitor the Southern Residents’ health; another participant in today’s briefing was Joe Gaydos of the SeaDoc Society, who was described as taking a lead on developing better tools to assess the whales’ health, while another participant, Michael Weiss from the Center for Whale Research, is working on a database with health information for individual whales.

MORE ABOUT THE SOUTHERN RESIDENTS: Recommended during the briefing was this Orca Network page with information about specific whales and pod-population info.