Puget Sound witnessed a joyous moment when they saw a wild grandmother orca, 38-year-old Princess Angeline, swimming with her new baby Saturday, said the Dodo. Swimming off the shore of British Columbia, the killer whale's latest addition shows the species is, hopefully, rebounding from their once dwindling population.
"This year we've had the youngest mother on record give birth, a 10-year-old, and three of the oldest," Michael Harris, executive director of the Center for Whale Research, told CTV News. "Now we've got a grandma having a baby. Forty is definitely the new 30 among the Southerns."
New baby J53 gives hope to the future of the endangered orca population. The J pod has gone three years without any new members, but with this year's births, the pod is up to 82 members — a much higher number of orcas than in the 1970s when 1976 saw the halt of these magnificent mammals being captured and taken to amusement parks such as SeaWorld.
But Harris warns that baby orcas have a 50-50 chance of making it their first year, so J53 and the other affectionately named "class of 2015" baby orcas are certainly not out of the woods yet, according to IUSB Preface.
Like the Washington State-based Center for Whale Research on Facebook to get updates on the J pod and its new additions. It's an exciting time for orcas in the wild!
