Over the past weekend , an orca was spotted off the seashore of Vancouver Island in the Strait of Georgia . regard the area has a tidy hulk watching industry , that fact alone is n’t too shocking . What is amazing about that sighting was the fact that it was an orca named J2 , also nickname “ Granny . ” Granny is believed to be 103 yr honest-to-god , which makes her the oldest known orca in the world .
That long time is quite impressive , give that the average lifespan of a female grampus is 70 - 90 days in the wild . Male do n’t run to hold out quite as long in the wild , and average out about 50 - 60 years old . In imprisonment , orcas do not fare nearly as well . Of the 159 killer whale that havedied in imprisonment , the mean age at the time of death is 8 geezerhood , 6 month . The stress from such a small living blank , demands of training , unnatural diet , and separation from their families are attributed to this truncated living , despite access to medical care and monitoring at those facility .
When Granny was spotted , she had just returned from the yearly migration with her pod , which includes her two child , her grandchildren , and her dandy - grandchild . This is fairly distinctive , as sea wolf calves lean to stick around with their families and they all be in one group . The seedcase are led byolder femalesof the family . Males will leave to join other pods for mating use , but retort to their family pod afterward .
Granny was identified by Simon Pidock from Ocean Ecoventures , who is quite familiar with the J Pod , which admit Granny and her family . " With her age , we ’re always concerned , you know , whether she ’s going to descend back , you hump , for another class . … It ’s the first motion … is Granny there ? ” Pidcock toldCBC News .
J Podis one of three known pods that populate the eastern Northern Pacific waters , along with K and L Pods . Collectively , they pods are known as the Southern Resident Killer Whales ( SRKW ) . Theyrangefrom British Colombia all the elbow room down into Washington land , though researchers do n’t believe J travels as far south as K and L. The SRKW have been take regularly since the seventies .
This group is one of the mostendangered populationsof killer whale , and they lost a twenty percent of their population between 1995 - 2001 , which is not sustainable for such a belittled population . The reasons for this decay are n’t all clear , though there are some hypotheses that are interconnected . Human activity , such as contamination and noise from gravy holder , has strike the whales as well as the Chinook salmon the orcas depend on for food . SRKW are also look at to be one of the most polluted in the world . They accumulate considerable toxins over the grade of their life-time , due to chemical that have been dumped in the water .
[ Hat steer : Simon Pidcock / Ocean EcoventuresandCBC News ]
