Friday Harbor, Washington—Two summers ago, an orca nicknamed Tahlequah—officially J35, a 20-year-old member of the endangered Southern Resident killer whale (SRKW) population that normally populates the Salish Sea in the summertime—captured the attention of people around the world as she mourned the death of her new calf by displaying its limp corpse, pushing it around on her rostrum for 17 days straight.
Now, amid the mostly encouraging news with the return of the SRKWs—the scientists observing them say the orcas who have returned appear to be well fed and comparatively healthy—researchers have announced that Tahlequah appears, once again, to be among several orcas in the population who are pregnant. And as with nearly everything related to these whales nowadays, the news is a seeming bright spot that is fraught with the potential for disaster, too.
J35’s pregnancy was discovered by scientists monitoring the Southern Residents with the help of non-invasive drones that can take images of them from over 100 feet above and help measure their body conditions. John Durban, senior scientist of Southall Environmental Associates, and Holly Fearnbach, marine mammal research director for the nonprofit SR3, told Lynda Mapes of The Seattle Times that, after reviewing images of J35 taken during their July visit to the Salish Sea, it was clear that the famous orca was once again bearing a growing fetus.
J35 is not the only pregnant whale in the population. Durban and Fearnbach reported that they observed pregnancies among females in all three SRKW pods—J, K, and L. Deborah Giles of the University of Washington’s Center for Conservation Biology, who also has been out collecting scat samples from the orcas during their July 4-16 visit to the inland waters, told Daily Kos that she also observed expectant females in all three pods. “L72 is very pregnant,” she said, adding: “There may be others pregnant as well—possibly members of all three pods.”
A slightly off-focus shot of K-20 “Spock” breaching July 1 seemed to reveal a pregnant orca.
Another of the orcas almost certainly pregnant is a female named K20, aka “Spock,” who was photographed July 1 breaching while clearly carrying a fetus. Giles, who hadn’t noticed her condition during K pod’s relatively brief incursion (two days in early July), told Daily Kos when she saw the photo: “Oh yeah, she looks pregnant. Holy cow.”
For a population down to 73 whales—and which only was able to produce two calves who survived in all of 2019—any sign of additional members is a very welcome sign, as is the mostly healthy appearance of most of the orcas. However, it is not true for all of them, by any means.
According to Durban and Fearnbach, several juveniles appear thin—J35’s 10-year-old offspring, J47 “Notch,” among them. “There are stressed whales out there, critically stressed,” she told the Times.
J35 “Tahlequah” prowling the waters of Haro Strait in August 2019.
Giles also observed J35 a number of times this month alongside the other J pod members, and reported similar findings—though noting that the whales in general appear healthier than they did one or two years ago: “We had a number of encounters with her and her family during those days that they were here. She looks good,” she said. A lot of them look good. It appears that some of them are on the thin side, which is not a total surprise, but I think they are looking better than they did last year when they came in.”
However, like Fearnbach, the big picture concerns Giles, particularly several realities even among the seeming improvement in their health. For one, the orcas appeared during their time in the Salish Sea to be hunting for Chinook salmon while spread out, rather than in the packs that are typically seen during times of bountiful runs. For another, none of them are congregating in the large social gatherings typical of summers in the Salish Sea.
“It’s so important to have the other pods come in, so that they can avoid inbreeding,” she said. “It’s critically important to the discussion about the recovery of these animals is that the social dynamics of the population as a whole are changing. It’s important not to let that slide. We can’t let the baseline be shifted to think that this is okay or normal. It’s not okay.”
A study overseen by UW’s Sam Wasser in which Giles played a key role by collecting whale scat, published in 2017, made a powerful link between the orcas’ ability to reproduce and the availability of salmon. It found that as the whales became more nutritionally stressed, more of their pregnancies failed. If their apparent recent success at finding prey holds up, then the chances for the calves to survive rises significantly.
“It’s always a bit of a nail-biter,” Giles said. “I’m cautiously optimistic that one or more of these calves will be born alive. But the fact is that we have to recognize that so far the data we have from 2008 through 2014 is that 69 percent of the babies are lost before the babies are born viable. We don’t know if that still holds.”
She noted that the odds are stacked against them: “I think there is concern that these females are going to be able to bring these calves to term. And even if the calves are born live, we still have that older statistic that still holds, which is that 50 percent of calves don’t make it to their first birthday, especially firstborn calves.”
The bottom line, she emphasized, is the availability of salmon—the lack of which is part of a larger environmental debate in the Pacific Northwest, since the depletion of salmon runs in rivers throughout the region is largely blamed on hydroelectric dams that destroy their native habitats. There is also an ongoing debate about including a place for orcas at the regional fisheries table when salmon harvests are being divvied up among commercial, tribal, and sport fishermen.
“It always does come back to food, no matter what issue or major threat we’re talking about, it does come back to food,” Giles said. “Because as we know from other studies on all species, if you’re not getting enough to eat, your body doesn’t have the resources to combat illness, you become more susceptible to disease.
“So that is why we need to be focusing on the whales’ entire range throughout the entire year and making sure that they have enough fish to eat everywhere they go. Because these whales are not here, where they would have been in the past at this time of year.”
The gestation period for killer whales is 17 months, so it’s difficult to predict when these calves will be born, particularly since it’s unknown how long any of the mothers have been pregnant. J35’s pregnancy is particularly fraught, because of its potential downside. The scientists are concerned about what might happen if she successfully gives birth again, but the calf once again dies, probably from a combination of malnutrition and toxin load.
“What happens if this baby dies? Is she going to do another tour of grief?” Giles wondered. “It comes across everybody’s mind. It’s clear that these animals are socially bonded with tight familial relationships, and the loss of one seemingly takes an emotional as well as a physical toll on them.”
Even if the calf survives, the mother continues to be at considerable risk, since she has to provide nutrition both for herself and for the unweaned calf for over a year afterward. For some orcas—as we saw with the tragic case of J28 “Polaris,” who slowly died of malnutrition during the summer of 2016 trying to keep her young calf J54, who died a couple of weeks after she disappeared, alive—this burden can be too much.
“We are concerned if she has a calf, will she be able to look after herself and the calf and J47, too?” Durban said. “There has been a lot of talk. I am not sure a lot has changed for the whales.”
