Orca who carried her dead calf for 17 days is pregnant again

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Tahlequah, the orca who carried her dead calf for 17 days, is pregnant again.

The mother orca raised worldwide concern when she carried her dead calf 17 days and more than 1,000 miles, almost exactly two years ago. Now, she has another chance at motherhood, scientists have learned.

Scientists John Durban recently finished recording drone images of the southern residents and discovered pregnancies amid the J, K and L pods. The recordings were done as part of a long-term study of the body condition of the endangered southern resident orcas that frequent Puget Sound. The photography is done non-invasively by a remote-activated drone flown more than 100 feet over the whales.

The southern residents are struggling to survive, and most pregnancies for these embattled whales are not successful. Tahlequah’s baby was the first for the whales in three years. The southern residents have since had two more calves, in J pod and L pod. Both are still alive.

The scientists will take another set of photos of the whales this fall and hope to see Tahlequah even rounder.

Source: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/environment/tahlequah-the-orca-who-carried-her-dead-calf-for-17-days-is-pregnant-again/

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Majestic animals. I kinda hate that we’re stalking them. But I guess it’s to measure whether their survival/extinction extent. One day I hope we can just leave them alone completely and not have to track them, because we are human enough to let nature take it’s course without us degrading it’s home for our own sick industrial needs.