4-Week-Old Killer Whale Dies at Marineland

The fifth killer whale ever to be born in captivity died unexpectedly over the weekend at Marineland, officials of the Palos Verdes Peninsula aquatic park said Tuesday.

The 4-week-old female whale, which weighed 400 pounds at birth, was found dead at about 1:15 p.m. Sunday after regurgitating a meal she had eaten about an hour earlier, Marineland spokeswoman Laurie Armstrong said. A veterinarian who performed an autopsy on the dead calf determined that asphyxiation was the cause of death, she said.

Armstrong said park officials do not know why the calf became ill. As in her four previous births, the mother, 8,000-pound Corky, refused to nurse her calf, so caretakers fed the baby with a special nutrient mixture similar to the mother’s milk. The other calves also died within weeks after birth.

“We stayed on the formula that we had developed, and it (the calf) was responding well to the feeding and the formula,” Armstrong said, “so that (the mother’s unwillingness to nurse) does not appear to be the cause.”

Corky’s first calf died in 1977 from brain damage suffered during labor, and her second offspring died in 1978 because the mother failed to nurse. After a stillbirth in 1980, Corky bore a fourth calf in 1982, which lived for 46 days before it died of stress after being separated from its mother for a short period.

‘Deprived of Learning’

Donald R. Patten, curator of mammals at the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History, said it is possible that the mother had not learned how to care for her offspring. Corky was captured in 1969, when she was about 4 years old, the age at which female killer whales are first capable of bearing young.

“She may have been deprived of learning that would have otherwise been acquired from other females,” Patten said. “There is obviously some learning involved. In the (natural) environment she would have been part of a family or extended family grouping that is stable over time. She would have been exposed to a role model.”

Patten added, however, that the mother’s problems may have started before she was taken from her natural environment and are therefore not necessarily tied to her captivity.

Other breeds of marine mammals held in captivity, such as dolphins and pilot whales, have been bred successfully with few postpartum complications, he said.

Dr. Charles Woodhouse, curator of vertebrate zoology at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, agreed that poor learning may have contributed to Corky’s problems, saying, “I think there might be an element of naiveness related to taking care of the young.”

Asked if she thinks that learning problems might be responsible for the deaths, Armstrong said, “It’s a possibility. It’s part of the big void. We kind of have to be happy that they (Corky and the calves’ father, Orky) are healthy enough to breed at all.”