Orca who carried her dead calf for more than 1,000 miles is pregnant

An orca known as Tahlequah, who raised worldwide concern when she carried her dead calf for 17 days and more than 1,000 miles almost two years ago, is pregnant, scientists said. Casey McLean, the executive director of Sealife Response, Rehabilitation and Research (SR3), confirmed the pregnancy, CBS affiliate KIRO-TV reported.

Tahlequah's pregnancy carries special meaning for a region that grieved the death of her calf with her.

The southern residents frequent Puget Sound, are struggling to survive, and most pregnancies are not successful. Tahlequah's baby was the first for the whales in three years. The southern residents have since had two more calves, in J pod and L pod. Both are still alive.

The current population of the southern resident orcas is 72.

A post on the nonprofit's website says that the majority of recent pregnancies have not resulted in successful births, due to a lack of access to Chinook salmon prey. About two-thirds of all southern resident pregnancies are typically lost, researcher Sam Wasser of the Center for Conservation Biology at the University of Washington has found.

Several of the juveniles in the pods also are looking thin, Fearnbach said.

"There are stressed whales out there, critically stressed," she said.

Boaters should respect the whales' space and give them the quiet they need, Fearnbach and Durban said. Whales use sound to hunt, and boat disturbance and underwater vessel noise is one of the three main threats to their survival, in addition to lack of adequate, available salmon and pollution.