Tahlequah or J35, a well-known orca whale, was spotted carrying another dead calf on January 1, 2025 by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) officials at Puget Sound off West Seattle. The whale gained worldwide fame in July 2018 for carrying her first dead calf for 17 days for over 1600 kilometres.
Although Tahlequah had two male calves that successfully survived after the 2018 incident, scientists recently spotted her with another calf that was believed to have been born prematurely on December 20, 2024. The orca was seen pushing the baby whale, named J61, trying to keep it on the surface to enable it to breathe.
Unfortunately, all Tahlequah’s attempts to keep her baby alive failed and on December 31 scientists discovered that the calf was missing. On January 1 the orca whale was spotted pushing something that was later confirmed to be the dead calf, leaving Tahlequah to embark on a second period of mourning.
According to Joe Gaydos, the Science Director of SeaDoc Society, a marine conservation program, the carrying of the deceased calf by Tahlequah is an expression of grief since whales are very much ‘wired’ like humans and other mammals that live for longer.
“We have the same neurotransmitters that they have. We have the same hormones that they have. Why shouldn’t we also have the same emotions that they have? We don’t have the market cornered on emotions. And so I think it’s fair to say that she is grieving or mourning,” he told the media.
Why do orcas like Tahlequah experience high offspring deaths?
Tahlequah belongs to Pacific Northwest whales called the Southern Resident orcas which are critically endangered and on the brink of extinction. There are 73 surviving orcas which is why every time one dies this attracts more international attention than other species and scientists consider any such loss to be devastating.
The decline of almost a third of the population of these orcas began between 1965 to 1975 when 50 were captured and rehomed in marine parks where many died. However, those that remained free in the ocean also saw their numbers decline due to a dearth of their main diet, the Chinook salmon, among other threats. As a result, the Southern Resident orcas are gradually starving which is impacting on their ability to recover and reproduce.
Climate change and the dams that were built on the lower Snake River have destroyed the salmon’s habitat leaving the orcas with little to eat. This nutritional stress led to a 69% miscarriage rate for pregnant females with deaths of offspring outnumbering successful births.
Human activity that leads to pollution together with the noise of shipping traffic also disrupts the ability of the orcas to communicate and forage for scarce food sources. Poisonous chemicals from dilapidated vessels and rainwater runoff are also poisoning the salmon that the orcas do find to eat which then destroys their own health and the contaminants in breast milk contribute to the mortality rate of calves being as high as 50% in their first year.
As yet, the interventions that have been rolled out to save these endangered orcas have so far resulted in little improvement.