@dolphindronedom: The friendliest orcas in the world! It had been almost exactly a year since our last encounter with this pod, and across three encounters this month we have both wonderful and devastating updates: Sadly, the most heartbreaking update is that Navi, Ana’s first known calf, has likely passed away. He would have turned three this month. We’ll always remember his endless energy and curiosity from the many special moments we shared with him. He will be missed immensely. No calf could ever replace Navi, but the very next update brought some much-needed happiness: Ana has a new baby! Her calf is likely only a few months old and is now the youngest member of the pod! Luna also has a new calf who is slightly older, but still under one year. They join the calves we first documented with Nicki and Kali last year! Quite the fertile group! It takes some luck to learn whether an orca calf is male or female. They have to roll over and show their belly to the camera. The sexes of Nicki, Luna, and Ana’s calves remain a mystery, but on Wednesday, Kali’s calf rolled directly in front of our underwater camera. It’s a boy! We hope to get the same opportunity with the other calves this year. A calf’s sex may not tell us much when it’s young, but it eventually becomes important to understanding how it fits into the pod’s social dynamics. We also noticed that Terso, one of our favorite young males, is getting big! He has grown so much that he can now be difficult to distinguish from Luna at a distance. That’s because their dorsal fins have such similar shapes! Within the next few years, we expect him to begin “sprouting,” when his dorsal fin grows tall and his pectoral flippers become much larger. We can’t wait to see how his relationship with the pod changes as he matures! Tracking birth rates and age-dependent mortality helps us understand how this pod compares with other killer whale populations. Although losing Navi is devastating, seeing Nicki and Kali’s calves survive to one year old is encouraging: an important milestone! Research and caption by @nicole.orcinologist and @dolphindronedom #LearnOnTikTok #orca #killerwhale #sandiego #california

Domenic Biagini

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Region: US

Friday 11 September 2026 14:55:07 GMT