Two years ago, a news was spread widely about a mother orca carried along her dead newborn for more than two weeks. It is said that now, the same orca is pregnant again.
J35 or Tahlequah, as called by researchers stating that she isn’t the only Southern orca expecting a newborn.
According to the image taken by a drone, she’s just one of several pregnant killer whales that have been identified by researches since early July.
In 2018, Tahlequah swam for 17 days with her dead newborn. She refuses to let her dead newborn sink, she pushed her calf toward the surface of the Pacific off the coast of Canada and the Northwestern US.
The population for the orca is a large extended family made up of three social groups, called pods, and orcas from each load are expecting.
It’s usual for females from all three pods to be expecting at the same time, but the group said the majority of recent pregnancies have not been successful.
“Studies by our colleagues at the University of Washington have shown that these reproductive failures are linked to nutrition and access to their Chinook salmon prey,” the online release said.
“So, we hope folks on the water can give the Southern Residents plenty of space to forage at this important time.”
It is believed that the orcas was in their final stage of pregnancy.
Source: CNN