Orca who carried her dead newborn 1,000 miles gives birth to another new calf

The killer whale who captured hearts across the world in 2018 for refusing to let go of her dead calf has given birth to her second baby in the last four years.

The Center for Whale Research said a team of researchers was able to begin observation of the newborn girl on Monday, giving the calf the alpha-numeric designation J61. The center added that it was "eager" to conduct follow-up observations of the calf.

Her mother is known as Tahlequah, or her designation number J35. Researchers assign the animals an alpha-numeric identification and eventually a nickname to go with it.

The Center for Whale Research expressed concern for the health of both J61 and her mother.

"Early life is always dangerous for new calves, with a very high mortality rate in the first year," the Center for Whale Research said on Tuesday. "J35 is an experienced mother, and we hope that she is able to keep J61 alive through these difficult early days."

Tahlequah made international headlines in 2018 when she carried her dead newborn calf for 17 days, tugging on the heartstrings of humans everywhere. By the time she let the baby's carcass go, she carried the calf across 1,000 miles on her head.

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee had already signed an executive order earlier that year establishing the Southern Resident Killer Whale Task Force. The goal was to study ways to preserve and restore the local orca population.

This is Tahlequah’s third baby calf to survive. Her oldest, J47 or “Notch,” was born in 2010 and her second, J57 or “Phoenix,” was born in 2020.

Tahlequah and her children live within the J-pod of orcas, inhabiting waters along the coast between Washington state and Vancouver Island, Canada.

The J-pod are one of three pods of killer whales known as the “Southern Resident” orcas. There are only about 73 orcas across all three pods, according to the Orca Conservancy.

According to NBC News affiliate KING-TV, a study earlier this year showed that the Southern Resident pod is declining by about one whale per year and less than two dozen will be left within this century.

Orcas are considered an endangered population as they face a range of threats, including entanglement in fishing nets, dwindling food supply, human interference and pollution to their environments. It’s estimated there are only 50,000 killer whales globally.

Contaminants in the water are a large concern for the killer whale population. Toxins from industrial chemicals don’t break down and become concentrated in the food chain supply and are then stored in the orcas' fat, according to the Georgia Strait Alliance.

Baby orcas are exposed to containments through their mothers' milk, which threatens their survival in their first year, the alliance said.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration noted that there are "relatively high contaminant levels" among the female Southern Resident whales and their offspring.

"We are concerned about the impact these contaminants might be playing in this population," NOAA said in its 2022 health assessment of the pod.