Orca moms spent precious resources feeding their fully grown adult male offspring. A new study finds that this may limit how many more young they produce.
February 9, 2023
“These two have an extremely close social relationship,” says Michael Weiss, the research director at theIt’s hard for Weiss to think of a time when he didn’t catch the pair hanging out in the same group, and often immediately next to each other.Weiss has observed the mom and son pair spending a lot of time close together, touching and floating at the surface — and sharing salmon.seeking to halt Southeast Alaska’s king salmon trolling season.
And here’s the striking thing — since K35 was born two decades ago, his mom has never had another calf. Contrast that with other females in the population. In fact, when a mom dies, her son usually perishes within a year or two. “We think that is largely because they’re seeing a huge reduction in the amount of food they get,” explains Weiss.
The result is that his mom would become a grandmother multiple times over. Her genes would end up in a bunch of calves. And because they’ll be born into other pods, she wouldn’t have to spend any effort raising them.. Jourdain, who wasn’t involved in the study, is hoping to conduct a similar research project in Norway.
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