Sea World Proudly Spouts Off News That Killer Whale Kasatka Is Pregnant

One of Sea World’s four killer whales is due to deliver a black-and-white bundle of blubber and joy sometime this summer, Sea World officials announced Wednesday.

Kasatka, the 16 1/2-foot, 5,000-pound mother-to-be, is about 12 months pregnant, but because of her size it has taken months to confirm that she is expecting, said Jim Antrim, the park’s senior curator of marine mammals. Antrim said the park’s announcement came only after several blood and urine tests showed Kasatka had elevated levels of the hormone progesterone.

“I now feel confident to announce she is pregnant,” he said at a gleeful news conference at the park. “We are all like proud parents.”

Antrim said the gestation period for whales is about 17 months, and park officials are expecting the new arrival as early as June. But Antrim cautioned that, as in other large mammals, the timing can vary widely.

When Kasatka’s first-born arrives, Antrim said, it will weigh 300 to 400 pounds and measure 6- to 7-feet long. If all goes well, and the calf survives, it will be the sixth successful birth of a killer whale bred in captivity.

Kasatka, which was captured in the North Atlantic Ocean in 1978, came to the park in February, 1990, from another Sea World park in San Antonio, Tex. When she arrived in San Diego, park officials believed the 14- to 16-year-old whale might be pregnant because they had observed mating behavior between Kasatka and Kotar, the only male that the chain of four amusement parks now owns.

Antrim said that, at that time, it was too early to measure hormone levels and determine if a baby whale was coming or not.

Park officials said they were excited about the prospect of getting an addition to their killer whale collection--which now totals 13 at the four parks. Without federal permits to capture killer whales in the wild, the parks depend largely upon newborns to stock their shows.

Antrim cautioned that, despite the good news, it’s still too early to celebrate. He said a recent study has shown that bottlenosed dolphins and some whales have difficulties with their first pregnancies. He added that killer whales born in the wild have a 50% mortality rate during their first year of life.

Graeme Ellis, a marine mammal technician with the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Ocean, was one of those who participated in the study. Ellis and a group of scientists looked at killer whale calves who died after living for six months or less.

It is difficult to determine why the calves die, but the numbers are somewhat higher than the gray whale, which has a 35% mortality rate according to some studies, Ellis said.

For now, the mother-to-be’s performance schedule will remain about the same, but there will be modifications in some of her routines. Jim Clarke, assistant curator of animal training at the park, said that Kasatka will not perform jumps that put strain on her abdominal area.

Sea World has had several killer whale births. Of seven calves born at the four parks, two died, both of them in San Diego, said Dan LeBlanc, park spokesman.