Tahlequah (J35) has a son, J65, seen on 19 October, sixteen days after J31 was spotted carrying a dead newborn

On Saturday 3 October 2026, Mark Malleson of the Center for Whale Research (CWR) saw J31, a J pod female of the Southern Resident killer whales, carrying a dead newborn near Sombrio Point, on the Canadian shore of the Strait of Juan de Fuca. On Monday 19 October, the centre observed J35, known as Tahlequah, with a male less than a week old, designated J65. In 2018, J35 carried her dead calf for at least 17 days (see our page on cetacean intelligence). The latest official count is 76 individuals on 1 July 2026.

J65, a male less than a week old, sexed by drone on 20 October

The age, “less than a week old”, is estimated from the calf’s appearance and J35’s previous sightings: the birth probably took place between 12 and 19 October. Seen again the next day, the pair was filmed by drone, confirming that the calf is male. The calf was swimming normally, socialising and nursing. “Our team saw no immediate indication of health issues in the calf,” says Michael Weiss, research director of the CWR, in the release of 21 October.

The release does not say where the sighting of the 19th took place. On the 20th, Monika W. Shields of the Orca Behavior Institute saw the pair from shore, at Lime Kiln Point on San Juan Island (The Northern View, 23 October). Born around 1998, J35 has three living sons; her two daughters are dead.

Five documented calves for J35 since 2010

Order	Designation	Sex	Birth	Outcome	Source
1	J47	male	2010	alive	CWR, 6 September 2020
2	none	female	24 July 2018	died shortly afterwards, carried for at least 17 days	CWR, 26 July and 11 August 2018
3	J57	male	around 4 September 2020	alive	CWR, 6 September 2020
4	J61	female	late December 2024 (reported on the 20th)	confirmed dead on 31 December 2024, carried for at least 11 days	CWR, 2025 census; Wikipedia
5	J65	male	12 to 19 October 2026 (estimate)	alive on 20 October	CWR, 21 October 2026

In 2018, the CWR did not give the calf a number, as it had not been shown to be viable; “Tali”, the name it is sometimes given, is in no way official. J62, reported in late December 2024, is the daughter of J41. Fox 13 wrongly dates J47 to 2020, the year of J57.

The CWR release announces a sixth calf and lists only five

The release of 21 October describes J65 as J35’s “sixth documented calf” but lists only the five calves in the table. KOMO, Fox 13, CTV and The Northern View repeat the count of six. The Canadian Press story, which at first said so too, was corrected on 23 October: “In fact, J35 only has five documented calves,” states the CBC note, and Narcity carries the same corrected version. It is not known who prompted the change, and we have found no correction from the CWR. KIRO 7, republished by Yahoo on 26 October, also writes “fifth”. This count matches the one the centre gave in January 2025: J35 had lost “two out of four documented calves” (KOMO).

No source names the sixth. The only published lead, unconfirmed, is a “speculated” miscarriage in the mid-2010s (Wikipedia, citing the Whale Museum and NPR); yet a lost pregnancy is not a documented calf. Nothing can fit between J61 and J65, born about 22 months apart, given a gestation of 15 to 18 months (see our profile of the killer whale).

Going by the CWR’s dates, J35’s calving intervals are about 8 years, 2 years, 4 years 3 months, then 22 months. The Northern Resident averages (4.88 years from 1973 to 1995, 5.53 years from 1996 to 2004, Olesiuk et al., 2005) are measured between viable calves, those seen alive at around six months: on that basis, J57 came ten years after J47. Each of the two short intervals follows the early death of a calf. The same report describes three females, all yet to have their first viable calf, that became pregnant again almost immediately after such a loss; it also notes that, of five intervals of more than ten years, four include gaps in monitoring during which a birth followed by a death may have gone unnoticed. That the same happened to J35 between 2010 and 2018 remains an undocumented hypothesis. Weiss et al. (Current Biology, 2023) put forward another lead: among the Southern Residents, each surviving weaned son would reduce the annual probability of having a calf that survives its first year, their definition of successful reproduction.

J31, seen with a dead newborn for the second time, the first in 2016

Sombrio Point is on the south-west coast of Vancouver Island, about 70 km west of Victoria as the crow flies, nearly 95 km by road. J31 was carrying the calf on her rostrum. According to the CWR’s encounter report, only her daughter J56 and her brothers J27 and J39 were with her; she let go of the newborn to forage briefly, then retrieved it as she continued eastwards. The CWR does not know the calf’s sex, whether it was full-term, or whether it was stillborn or died after birth; the cause of death “is not known” (The Canadian Press and CTV, 7 October).

Born in 1995, J31 has a single living offspring, J56 (2019). The CWR mentions reproductive losses and failed pregnancies without putting a number on them; KUOW (6 October) writes that she has lost at least eight other calves, while the Journal of the San Juan Islands (12 October) refers to her eighth loss: the two figures do not agree, and neither outlet says where it got its figure. Among the cases we have found, in a list that is not exhaustive, only J35 had already been seen twice carrying a dead calf; many newborn deaths, perhaps most, probably go unnoticed (Olesiuk et al., 2005). The calf has no number in the sources: if the CWR does as it did in 2018, it will not receive one and will not appear among the births in the next census.

Carrying a dead newborn, from J11 in 1998 to J31 in 2026

Cases found in the sources consulted, in a list that is not exhaustive:

• J11, on 4 December 1998 (Olesiuk et al., 2005);
• L72, on 10 September 2010, Haro Strait (Reggente et al., 2016);
• J31, in 2016;
• J35, from 24 July to 11 August 2018;
• J35, from 31 December 2024, for at least 11 days according to the CWR, at least five according to KUOW;
• J36, on 12 and 13 September 2025 (KUOW);
• J31, on 3 October 2026.

Carrying a carcass for a day or two is not uncommon, according to Brad Hanson of NOAA, quoted by KUOW. Bearzi et al. (Zoology, 2018) bring together 78 reports in 20 species: 75% of the cases where the sex is known (n = 28) involve an adult female carrying a dead calf or juvenile. From this small sample, they put forward three hypotheses: attempts to revive or protect, an attachment “possibly related to grieving”, and a failure to recognise death. The “grief” that Deborah Giles (SeaDoc Society) and NOAA refer to remains an interpretation.

First year: 50% survival estimated by the CWR, higher among documented calves

The figure Weiss cites, “half” of calves making it through their first year, is an estimate: in January 2025, according to KIRO 7’s paraphrase, he put the one-year survival of documented calves at around 70%, with the CWR placing the true rate at around 50% because some calves die before being seen. It is not known whether that 70% includes unnumbered newborns found dead before 2025, such as J35’s in 2018; a rate based only on designated calves excludes them, and overestimates survival. Other figures are calculated on other bases.

Figure	What is counted	Source
About 70% reach the age of one	documented calves	CWR via KIRO 7, 3 January 2025
About 50% reach the age of one	estimate that takes unseen deaths into account	CWR, 21 October 2026; explanation: CWR via KIRO 7, 3 January 2025
About 1 in 6 dies before the age of one	killer whales identified since 1976	Weiss, CWR, 19 August 2020
About 75% did not survive	newborns of the two decades before 2018	CWR, 26 July 2018
About 50% die before maturity	calves born	NOAA, 14 January 2025
4 of 8 alive at the census	designated calves born from July 2024 to July 2026	calculation, CWR censuses
Up to 69% of pregnancies unsuccessful (24 of 35)	detected pregnancies, 2008 to 2014	Wasser et al., 2017

Of the eight calves in the calculation, K47 and L130 were not yet a year old at the census: the sample is too small to establish a trend. Wasser et al. believe their failure rates may be overestimated. We found no one-year survival rate published by NOAA.

Seen alive at less than a week old, J65 has survived his first days: the “half” figure, which counts calves that die before any observation, probably underestimates the chances of a calf in his situation, and the 70% for documented calves comes closer, even though some of those calves were only first spotted at several months old. But Weiss pointed out in January 2025 that females with several sons to care for less often produce a calf that survives its first year (KIRO 7), and J35 has two. No published figure matches this case exactly. The grandmother effect described in our article on menopausal killer whales, measured in the two years following the grandmother’s death, does not apply directly: J17, J65’s maternal grandmother, was listed as missing, presumed dead, at the census of 1 July 2019.

J pod: three times in twenty-two months, a loss and a birth close together

In late December 2024, the death of J61 and the birth of J62; in September 2025, J36’s dead calf, then the birth of J64, which died before the 2026 census; in October 2026, J31’s dead calf, then the birth of J65. No source suggests a mechanism linking these episodes.

The total of 77 published by CTV is a press tally; J65 will appear among the births in the census as of 1 July 2027, and in the population count if he is alive then. The CWR’s 2026 census report points out that periods of growth have often been followed by steep declines, and says that, at the population level, the low birth rate and low calf survival are “likely” tied to pollutants and a lack of large, fatty chinook salmon. NOAA’s stock assessment report (April 2026) also raises the possibility of inbreeding depression (Kardos et al., 2023), and Michael Weiss mentions noise. For J36, in 2025, drone images taken before the birth showed no obvious sign of poor health, according to Deborah Giles.

Sources: CWR, releases on J31 (7 October 2026, republished by theOrcasonian on the 7th and the Journal of the San Juan Islands on the 9th) and on J65 (21 October 2026), encounter report no. 91 (3 October 2026), “Orca Survey 2026 Results” (July 2026), “Orca Population” page (2025), J35 page (26 July and 11 August 2018), J57 page (6 September 2020), blog post by Michael Weiss (19 August 2020), release on the 2019 census (6 August 2019); Journal of the San Juan Islands (12 and 21 October 2026); KOMO News (1 January 2025, 21 October 2026); Fox 13 Seattle (21 October 2026); CTV News (7 and 21 October 2026); The Canadian Press via Narcity (7 and 21 October 2026) and via CBC (21 October 2026, corrected on the 23rd); KIRO 7 via Yahoo (3 January 2025, 26 October 2026); KUOW (13 September 2025, 6 October 2026); The Northern View (23 October 2026); NOAA Fisheries (14 January 2025; stock assessment report, April 2026); Wikipedia, “Tahlequah (orca)” (24 October 2026), citing the Whale Museum and NPR (31 July 2018); Olesiuk, Ellis and Ford, Fisheries and Oceans Canada (2005); Wasser et al., PLOS ONE (29 June 2017); Bearzi et al., Zoology (June 2018); Reggente et al., Journal of Mammalogy (2016); Nattrass et al., PNAS (2019); Weiss et al., Current Biology (2023); Kardos et al., Nature Ecology & Evolution (2023).