Southern resident orca pod in best condition in decade
By Lynda V. Mapes
article
Photos of J Pod calfs taken under Federal Permits: NMFS PERMIT: 21238/ DFO SARA 388 (Mark Malleson/Center for Whale Research)
SEATTLE - She was a mother who happened to be an orca, whose plight resonated around the world as she clung to her dead calf, refusing to let it go.
Mother orca Tahlequah, J35, brought front and center the extinction crisis threatening the southern resident killer whales that frequent Puget Sound. There are only 75 left.
She swam through the Salish Sea for 17 days and more than 1,000 miles in the summer of 2018, in what many interpreted as a journey of grief. It’s possible she never let the calf go; when it was last photographed by scientists at the Center for Whale Research, the calf was falling apart.