On April 6, the newest J Pod calf, J63, was spotted near Victoria by Center for Whale Research field biologist Mark Malleson. The calf appeared to be one to three weeks old and was traveling closely to its presumed mother, J40 “Suttles” – who would be a first-time mother if confirmed. The calf’s sex is still unknown.

“We haven’t seen anything that makes us concerned for this calf specifically,” Research Director Michael Weiss of the Center for Whale Research said. “But young calves have a low survival rate (about 50%), so we always temper our optimism. We hope to be able to follow up with this calf and its mother in the coming weeks.”

J63 is the fourth Southern Resident killer whale calf born in the last 12 months, preceded by L128 (born in September to L90 “Ballena” but only surviving a few weeks), J61 (J35 “Tahlequah”’s calf who was believed to be born prematurely in December and ultimately did not survive) and J62 (a female born in February to J41 “Eclipse” who is still being observed regularly).

“If we want more Southern Resident calves to survive, we need to make sure their mothers have enough to eat,” Weiss explained. “That means improving the abundance, size, and health of Chinook salmon. This will require fisheries reforms, the breaching of obsolete, harmful dams like the lower four Snake River dams, and large-scale habitat restoration.”

On March 11, Rep. Dan Newhouse (WA-04) introduced a bill to protect the dams and remove funding for studies around removal. HR 2073, the “Defending Our Dams” act, which seeks to protect the dams as a source of hydro-energy at the expense of the salmon population, has been referred to the Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment and was cosponsored by Reps. Michael Baumgartner (Wa-05), Cliff Bentz (OR-02) and Russ Fulcher (ID-01).

The San Juan Islands are in District 2, represented by Rick Larsen, who has historically been against removing the Snake River Dams. Larsen has procured funds toward fisheries reforms, however. Larsen can be contacted at https://larsen.house.gov/contact/ regarding constituents’ desires around how he votes on HR 2073.