Missing newborn orca turns up in San Juans

SEATTLE – A baby orca that went missing from the Northwest’s struggling killer-whale population turned up Sunday, triggering cheers and family photos at the Whale Research Center in the San Juan Islands.

“The lost was found,” said Ken Balcomb, veteran orca researcher at the Friday Harbor center. “It wasn’t with its mom that day,” he added of reports last week that the calf was missing and perhaps dead.

The state’s three resident orca pods were declared an endangered species last year, and disappearance of the newborn that had boosted the population to 90 for the first time this century was painful news.

The calf – whose orange newborn coat made it stand out among its black-and-white family – was first spotted Aug. 13 in Haro Strait, on the west side of the San Juans, where the orcas congregate over the summer to chase salmon. But then it was not seen for days. It was spotted Sunday near Friday Harbor, on the east side of San Juan Island.

There were a couple of possible sightings, but no documentation until Sunday. “We have to go by a picture to be sure,” Balcomb noted. “He’s an adventurous little guy.”