Orca mothers care for their adult sons throughout their life by sharing food to sustain their massive appetites, a new study finds. The maternal strategy comes with costs — and may even raise their risk of extinction.
A new study finds that orca mothers still feed their adult sons. It's a bond that may come with costs, researchers say.
Weiss has observed the mom and son pair spending a lot of time close together, touching and floating at the surface — and sharing salmon. And here's the striking thing — since K35 was born two decades ago, his mom has never had another calf. Contrast that with other females in the population."Some whales started reproducing at the same age around the same time," says Weiss,"and they had daughters. And they've produced three or four offspring.", Weiss and his colleagues looked back across four decades of life history records of Southern Resident killer whales in the Pacific Northwest.
Weiss can't think of another animal that makes this never-ending investment when it has the option of reproducing multiple times. So why would these orca moms sacrifice so much for their sons? Weiss argues the potential payoff is huge.
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