An endangered orca was spotted Friday carrying a dead newborn on her nose, umbilical cord still attached, between Orcas Island and Cypress Island in Washington state.
Whale watching boats reported seeing the 26-year-old female known as J36 or “Alki” carrying the dead baby orca, which researchers presume was born near or at full term given its size.
On Saturday, researchers watched J36 head south past Lopez Island. Researcher Deborah Giles with the SeaDoc Society said that as the grieving mother traveled, she would take three deep breaths, then make a deep dive to recover the fallen carcass of her newborn calf.
“She would go down and collect the sinking baby and then bring it up to the surface for as long as she could,” Giles said.
It is not the first time such on-the-nose grief has been observed in this endangered population. In January, orca J35 carried a dead baby for at least five days. J35 had previously made world headlines in 2018 when she carried her dead calf for 17 days and 1,000 miles.
Biologists with the Center for Whale Research and SeaDoc Society confirmed the most recent sighting of the orca mother on social media Saturday.
“It is unclear if this was a stillbirth or if the calf died shortly after birth,” the post said. “Based on when we last observed J36, this calf would have been born within the last three days.”
Drone images, shot under federal permit, showed the mother with the dead calf, the baby’s body stretching only as far as her mother’s dorsal fin.
Giles said drone imagery from before the birth showed no obvious indications of the pregnant mom being in poor health.
J36 was also pregnant in 2019, 2021, and 2023. None of those calves survived.
In 2015, J36 gave birth to a son, J52, that lived for just two years.
“She's one of the whales that that has been pregnant a fair amount, and, unfortunately, has been rather unsuccessful in bringing a calf to term,” Giles said.
Failed pregnancies are the rule, not the exception, among this beleaguered population of marine mammals.
Two-thirds of pregnancies among the southern resident killer whales end in miscarriages or babies that die almost immediately.
Meanwhile, Giles confirmed that two other members of the orcas’ J Pod were pregnant.
“We're not doing enough to recover this population of endangered killer whales,” Giles said. “We need to be concentrating on the lack of quality and quantity prey that's making it back to the southern residents’ native home range.”
The southern resident orcas rely primarily on Chinook salmon, the largest and fattiest of all Pacific salmon.
Salmon have been shrinking both in number and in size, leaving orcas to work harder to find and consume the calories they need.
“Even as recently as 20 years ago, it was not super uncommon to find a 40-pound Chinook salmon,” Giles said. “The average-size Chinook salmon in Washington state now is 12 and a half pounds.”
While researchers themselves experience grief watching the death of the endangered orcas they study, they also experience joy as they catch glimpses into the lives of these intelligent, social animals.
Just days before the death of J36’s latest calf, drones captured images of pregnant orca J46 and a young female orca rubbing bellies together as they swam.
“It's just this incredibly beautiful, intimate window into their lives,” Giles said.
“It's clear that they're socializing underwater,” Giles said. “They're rubbing up on each other and spending huge amounts of time underwater, just in this contact, tactile behavior. It's stunning.”
J Pod orcas were spotted swimming off Seattle’s Golden Gardens Park on Saturday afternoon. Photographer Amy Fowler captured a member of J Pod breaching off the bow of Holland America’s northbound Eurodam cruise ship between Seattle and Bainbridge Island.
The return of the southern residents to waters south of Admiralty Inlet triggered the start of large-ship-slowdown season under the voluntary Quiet Sound initiative.
The program asks container ships, vehicle carriers, and cruise ships to slow to 14.5 knots while other cargo ships are asked to slow to 11 knots, from Saturday night through Jan. 11.
In 2024-2025, 66% of big ships reduced their speeds somewhat, and 56% fully met the suggested speed targets, according to the Quiet Sound initiative.
At 3:35 p.m. Saturday, whale researchers Mark Sears and Maya Sears photographed J36 off Seattle. She was no longer carrying her dead daughter.
This story comes to you from the Northwest News Network, a collaboration between public media organizations in Oregon and Washington.