Grieving orca mother Tahlequah carries dead baby for the second time 

Researchers announced the death of the baby calf on New Year's Day. (Courtesy: Center for Whale Research)

The famous mother orca who made waves around the world for carrying her dead calf for 17 days has suffered another tragic loss.

The U.S.-based Center for Whale Research announced calf J61, the daughter of mother orca Tahlequah, hadn’t survived to see the new year, in a statement released New Year’s Day.

The calf was born just before Christmas, but was confirmed dead on New Year’s Eve, scientists said.

As was the case with the loss of her first daughter, Tahlequah has been seen carrying the body of her deceased second daughter with her. In 2018, the mother of four carried the lifeless body of her calf for 1,600 kilometres off British Columbia’s south coast for more than two weeks.

“The death of any calf in the SRKW (southern resident killer whale) population is a tremendous loss, but the death of J61 is particularly devastating,”said the centre in the statement.

“Not just because she was a female, who could have one day potentially led her own matriline, but also given the history of her mother J35, who has now lost two out of four documented calves – both of which were female.”

The statement said the entire team at the Center for Whale Research is “deeply saddened” by the news of the loss.

“We will continue to provide updates when we can,” it said.

New Year’s Eve had been a bittersweet day for the centre’s researchers, who had first taken to B.C.’s waters to investigate reports of a new calf that had been born into the group of southern resident killer whales, dubbed the J-pod.

The mother of the new calf J62 is still to be determined, as it had been swimming among multiple female orcas when researchers had paid their visit. While the calf’s sex isn’t yet known, the baby appeared to be “physically and behaviorally normal,” the statement said.

Prior to finding Tahlequah’s deceased baby, researchers had expressed concern over her health after noting certain behaviour from her and her mother. The centre noted how resident killer whales have a very high mortality rate for calves in their first year.

“We always have to be concerned with southern residents … whilst we’re always excited at the prospect of a new birth and a new member, it’s always with a little bit of caution,” said marine zoologist and UBC researcher Dr. Anna Hall.

Hall said the news of the death of Tahlequah’s baby calf was “devastating” and “beyond tragic,” and the behaviour exhibited by the grieving mother, once again, only made it more so.

“Going back to 2018, the world was captivated by the emotions that were expressed by the loss of her young calf, and then carrying that calf for 17 days, that was a real insight into the emotional loss of the animal,” she said.

“We're only just beginning to understand [them]. We know they’re very complex. We know they live in a very complicated society, but understanding the emotional intelligence of these creatures is something that we really don’t have a good grasp of, she gave us great insight into things of a mother who just lost a newborn,” said Hall.

“Here we are six years later, and we’re seeing the same thing again.”

Misty MacDuffee, a conservation biologist who directs the Wild Salmon Program at the Raincoast Conservation Foundation, said the endangered state of the southern resident killer whale’s population makes the loss particularly hard-hitting.

“At this point, we have more deaths than births, and this population is not recovering or even holding its own,” she said.

“We're always so hopeful for these calves that they can get through this first neonatal stage, which is really crucial.”

MacDuffee said the dwindling number of southern resident killer whales is the result of the diminishing prey that is available to them, the “highly polluted” waters that the whales are swimming in, and the underwater noise hindering the marine mammal’s communication efforts.

“They need to hear and be heard in order to identify and catch their food and to communicate with other members of their pod,” she said.

“The presence of underwater noise interferes with echolocation used to detect and catch prey, so the area where they hear and can be heard is reducing. Not only are they not getting enough prey, it's harder to catch the prey that are out there,” she said.

MacDuffee said environmental groups are calling on the federal government to address the problems the whales are facing, especially when regarding new projects that interfere with the local marine life.

“These whales are swimming in noisy, highly polluted waters, and we need to reverse those conditions to improve their survival,” she said.

“We're expanding ports at Delta port, we've approved the Trans Mountain Pipeline. All of this is contributing to the degradation and the quality of critical habitat within the Salish Sea and the decisions to address that are not being made federally,” MacDuffee added.

“We're really at the 11th hour for this population …. we can't keep calves alive. If this population is to recover, those calves must be kept alive, and the conditions that the females, the mothers, face, have got to improve for that to happen,” she said.

Researchers will be monitoring Tahlequah, alongside new calf J62, when conditions and the movements of the whales allow, scientists said.

With files from CTV News Vancouver's Andrew Johnson.