The mortality rate for orca calves is about 50 per cent in the first year, but the Class of 2015 has been faring well so far.
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The Sound’s resident J pod has a third newborn calf, the Center for Whale Research announced on Saturday.
Dubbed J53, the little whale was seen travelling with J17, a 38-year-old grandmother nicknamed Princess Angeline.
The killer whale baby boom is still fully underway on the West Coast, where yet another new calf was spotted this weekend. A new calf was documented today in J pod!
This is great news for conservationists, as the three southern resident orca pods – found between Washington state and Alaska – are listed on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s endangered species list. It’s the sixth baby born to Puget Sound’s three orca pods since last December, boosting their numbers to 82. Prior to that, it had been almost three years since a successful birth.
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Executive Director Michael Harris said in a statement the wide age range of the female orcas giving birth is fascinating. “Now we’ve got a grandma having a baby”. Even with all the births of late the number of orcas in the southern resident population, 82, is still considered low. “Forty is definitely the new 30 among the Southerns”, Harris said.
