The Center for Whale Research, a non-profit organization that studies killer whales on a long-term basis, announced the good news on Dec. 31. The day before, Ken Balcomb, a scientist who works with the organization had been monitoring the pod, which is known as J-pod. Balcomb was monitoring the pod, which spends most of its time in the waters of Puget Sound, part of the Salish sea, and that’s when he spotted the newborn orca, Tech Times reports.
“Official Conformation! Good news for the end of 2014! New baby in J pod-J16 has a new calf,” the Center announced on Facebook.
The birth is definitely good news because it happened after a pregnant orca died earlier in December. The pregnant orca, named J32, died in the Strait of Georgia, and when scientists hauled her ashore to perform a necropsy, they determined that the fetus the whale was carrying died, resulting in a bacterial infection which killed the mother, Discovery News reports.
“The loss of J-32 was a disturbing setback,” Brad Hanson, a wildlife biologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), told Live Science, per Discovery News. “We lost a lot of reproductive potential.”
The birth of this new calf has an interesting twist.
Balcomb noticed that he and others spotted bite marks on the calf, known as J50, and, to the scientists, this suggested that another whale acted as a marine midwife, CTV News reports.
“We suspect what happens sometimes in these troubled deliveries, is that another whale sort of gently bites the little baby and pulls it out, and leaves teeth marks,” he said. “We can definitely see the teeth marks and we surmise that it’s an assisted delivery.”
There had been some question as to who the newborn’s mother is. One killer whale who is known to be in her early 40s has been spotted swimming along side the new arrival near B.C.’s Gulf Islands. This orca, known as J16, has given birth to at least five calves over the years, and it’s likely she wouldn’t need help because of her experience, Balcomb said. So researchers believe J16 is the calf’s grandmother. J36, the daughter of J16, is thought to be the mother, and researchers are working with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans to determine if this is correct, per CTV News.
Killer whales (Orcinus orca) are known to care for each other, and babysitting isn’t unusual, especially if grandmothers are involved, the Center said in a statement.
J-16’s last calf died before it reached a month old in Dec. 2011, Balcomb said. Deaths like this aren’t unusual, the NOAA notes, per Tech Times. About 35 to 45 percent of newborn orcas don’t survive past their first year. If this newborn, named J50, survives, she will be the first successful calf born in J-pod in two and a half years.
Through photos, scientists were able to determine that the newborn is a female, and scientists are excited about the birth, Balcomb said.
“This baby is one of the last little hopes we have for this population to survive,” he said. “Because its a female and can have babies of her own, you know, a dozen years from now we might see the population slightly start to increase,” he said. “There just aren’t many reproductive females left in the population and that’s a tragedy that we’ve allowed to happen.”
What’s also tragic is that part of the group was captured for display, Hanson said, per Discovery News. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, at least 40 whales (more than half of J-pod’s population) were taken for captive display. While the population rebounded to almost 100 whales in the 1990’s, it has suffered setbacks since then, and the population has declined by 20 percent.
Southern resident killer whales are an endangered species, with only 78 in the waters of British Columbia and Washington state, and this includes little J50, Canada’s National Post reports.
Scientists think a major stumbling block for the whales has been the depletion of Chinook salmon, which is a primary food source, and it’s made it much more difficult for their population to rebound.
Balcomb said researchers are trying to get the Canadian and U.S. governments to cooperate and protect the salmon that is so necessary if these whales are to survive, per CTV News.
“We have to have abundant food supplies in order for them to meet the nutritional needs of reproduction and they just haven’t done it,” he said. “You’ve got to have fish, got to have salmon, got to have Chinook salmon, and you’ve got to have lots of it.”
For the sake of these magnificent and intelligent creatures, let’s hope both countries get their collective act together.
