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An orca calf is believed to be lifeless after it was lacking from its pod throughout a latest encounter close to San Juan Island, says The Heart for Whale Analysis.
The middle (CWR), primarily based in Friday Harbour, Wash., says the youngest member of J pod, J60, was lacking in the course of the Saturday, Jan. 27, encounter and “is probably going deceased.”
CWR researchers had carried out a photograph I.D. survey of the pod in San Juan Channel, the middle said in a Facebook post Monday afternoon.
Throughout the encounter, images have been captured “of all different members of the pod, together with all potential moms for J60, however J60 himself was not seen,” the middle wrote.
Protocols require not less than three full censuses of the pod to substantiate mortality, however given the calf’s younger age, “this can be very unlikely that J60 was off on his personal for all the period of the encounter,” notes the middle. “We now consider that J60 is, sadly, deceased.”
It says the calf was a few month outdated.
The CWR paperwork encounters and posts the findings here. At one level, they “had photographed each pod member apart from J60, and it was changing into clear that the calf was not there.”
It says J42 was the calf’s most certainly mom, given its affiliation patterns and the being pregnant standing of J pod females in late 2023.
“Nonetheless, given the calf’s diversified social companions in youth, this may enter our dataset as a ‘possible’ relationship,” stated CWR, including that J46 was additionally “closely pregnant” late final yr however not “persistently related” with J60.
The middle says this may have been the primary noticed calf for both feminine.
It says the mortality fee for Southern Resident calves, particularly these born to first-time moms, is “very excessive” due to “typically poor” dietary standing and the switch of poisons from mom to calf throughout gestation and lactation.
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“The Southern Residents want considerable, massive Chinook salmon if they’re going to have the ability to elevate their calves to maturity and maintain the inhabitants going,” it stated.
In keeping with the CWR, J pod is the pod most certainly to seem year-round within the waters of the San Juan Islands and Southern Gulf Islands, decrease Puget Sound and B.C.’s Georgia Strait.
The latest Southern Resident killer whale (SRKW) census data from July 1, 2023, discovered 25 orcas in J pod, 9 lower than in L pod however 9 greater than in Okay pod.
In late December 2023, the CWR reported an endangered Southern Resident killer whale calf had been born around Christmas Day.
Extra details about the newest encounter is here.
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