Grieving ordeal of mother orca, who carried her dead calf for 17 days and 1,600km, is finally over
J35 is back to frolicking with her pod, looking ‘vigorous and healthy’
A grieving mother orca has finally dropped her dead calf after carrying the body for 17 days, drawing worldwide concern.
“J35 frolicked past my window today with other J pod whales, and she looks vigorous and healthy,” Ken Balcomb, founding director of the Centre for Whale Research in Friday Harbour, Washington, wrote in an email. “The ordeal of her carrying a dead calf for at least seventeen days and 1,000 miles (1,600km) is now over, thank goodness.”
J35 is part of the critically endangered southern-resident killer-whale population. Balcomb said J35 probably has lost two other offspring since giving birth to a male calf in 2010.
J35 showed no signs of “peanut head,” a condition that betrays malnutrition in an orca, as cranium bones begin to show. “She’s been eating,” Balcomb said.
People around the world were moved by the plight of the southern residents as J35 carried her dead baby, a female, day after day.