🐋 Tahlequah
Really called J35
Killer whale (Southern Resident orca) · The Salish Sea - the waters around the San Juan Islands, Washington, and southern British Columbia
Lives in Lagoon
J35, called Tahlequah, is a Southern Resident killer whale born around 1998 to J17. When her newborn daughter died on 24 July 2018 she carried the body on her rostrum for 17 days and roughly 1,000 miles, and pod-mates took turns floating the calf so she could rest. In January 2025 she did it again with a second dead calf, J61, for 11 days. Two of her sons, born in 2010 and 2020, are alive and still travel with her.
What they do
Surfaces in a long arch and blows a misty spout, then lifts her rostrum clear of the water and holds it up, balancing, for a beat before sliding under..
The whale who would not put her daughter down - and whose family took shifts so she could breathe.
Lore
- ★The 2018 carry lasted at least 17 days and covered about 1,000 miles around the San Juan Islands and British Columbia.
- ★At sunset on 25 July 2018, observers watched five or six females gather in a tight circle at the mouth of a cove near where the calf died.
- ★Her surviving sons are J47 (Notch, born 2010) and J57 (Phoenix, born 2020); male orcas stay with their mothers for life.
- ★Her population is tiny: 74 Southern Residents in total as of the Center for Whale Research's census on 1 July 2025.
Helping the real one
💛 Support Tahlequah via Center for Whale ResearchThe Center for Whale Research runs the official Southern Resident census that tracks J35 and her family; this link resolves to their live donation page. This opens their own official page. Money never touches this site.
Where this comes from
- Center for Whale Research Southern Resident orca population census, current to 1 July 2025 ↗
- KNKX Public Radio Tahlequah's second tour of grief ↗
- Wikipedia Tahlequah (orca) ↗
Every link here was checked twice before it was published. If one is dead or wrong, tell us.