The sad story begins again. Seven years after making headlines for refusing to abandon her baby's lifeless body, Tahlequah reappears in exactly the same situation. The female orca, whose birth of a new baby was announced a few days ago, once again saw her calf lose its life prematurely.
According to the Whale Research Center based in Washington State (western United States), the endangered orca, also known as J35, was spotted this Wednesday off the coast of Seattle carrying its dead female calf .
“J35 was seen carrying the body of the deceased calf,” the research center wrote on the social network Instagram on Thursday. “This behavior had already been observed on D35 in 2018 when she carried the body of her deceased calf for 17 days,” he added.
She was then seen sometimes pushing the remains with her nose, sometimes grabbing it with her mouth, according to American media. “This is a very tragic time of mourning,” Research Center founder Ken Balcomb told public broadcaster NPR at the time.
The loss of a new calf is “particularly devastating,” according to the center. Tahlequah has now lost two of her four registered calves.
The Tahlequah orca pod was also joined by another newborn, the Center notes. “The sex of the calf is not yet known,” but it “appears normally physically and behaviorally,” according to the researchers.
Tahlequah and her pod are southern resident orcas, a population listed as endangered in the United States, in the Pacific Northwest. There are only three groups, about 70 animals in total.
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