Newborn killer whale melts hearts and brings hope for endangered pod

Only a week old, newborn orca, currently referred to as J50, captures the hearts of many whale-lovers.

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - According to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, getting to see a newborn orca is very rare. About 35 to 45 percent of these babies die before the age of one. If J50 lives, "it will be the first successful newborn in the Puget Sound population in about two and half years," reported Live Science.

Puget Sound, a large Pacific Ocean inlet, is the home for a pod of endangered killer whales off the coast of Washington State, according to Live Science.

Light a prayer candle for baby J50

While killer whales are widely found around the world, this specific group of whales is considered endangered because they are a target for captivity.

According to Hanson, during the late 1960s and early 1970s, half of the whale population in Puget Sound was taken for captive display.

Baby J50 brings hope to the pod as they recently lost pregnant female, J-32, and her baby earlier in December.

"The loss of J-32 was a disturbing setback," Brad Hanson, a wildlife biologist with the NOAA, told Live Science. "We lost a lot of reproductive potential."

J50's mother remains unknown, as he hangs around an older female too old to birth a newborn. Speculation floats around the idea that this may be a grandmother and the mother is still recovering.

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"We're going to take every opportunity to get out and see if it's still doing well," Ken Balcomb, senior scientist at the Center for Whale Research said to The Washington Post. "And if it is a teenage mother, she ought to be over trauma by now."

"It [J50] will get a cool name if it survives," expressed Balcomb. "'Miracle' is the name that's already been used, but that was 30 years ago. Maybe we can do it again."

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