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SEATTLE (AP) – Teams searched for a sick and critically endangered killer whale in Washington State and Canada on Thursday, but a scientist who closely follows the people of the Pacific Northwest said the whale known as the J50 is dead.
Experts are preparing last-minute efforts to save the emaciated whale, nearly four years old, including the opportunity to catch and treat the killer whale.
Officials said they would intervene and save the killer whale if she was stuck or separated from the rest of her whale group. But she has not been seen in days.
Ken Balcomb, Senior Researcher at the Whale Research Center, said he believed that the whale "has disappeared".
Michael Milstein, NOAA Fisheries spokesman, said that boats and planes in the United States and Canada are searching for the whale and the network of people who responded when marine mammals were alerted.
J50 was spotted last Friday in extremely poor condition and in poor condition and has not been seen in recent days with his family.
The whale experts feared that the killer whale died earlier this month when J50 was lagging behind his family and was missing. But she came later and was seen with her family.
Balcomb said that he thought he was dead because the researchers spotted his family several times in recent days and that she was not with them. Whales travel closely in family units.
He said that J50 was not seen despite several days of favorable observations. "She's definitely not with her family," Balcomb said.
The distinctive black and white orcas, known as Southern Resident Killer Whales, have experienced difficulties since their listing on the endangered species list in the United States and Canada, there are more than ten years.
The death of J50 would bring the population to only 74 animals, the lowest in more than three decades.
Another whale in the same group, known as the J35, sparked international sympathy this summer when she kept her dead calf's body afloat for more than two weeks.
Orcs are struggling because of the lack of chinook salmon, the staple of their diet. They also face threats of toxic contamination and noise from ships. Whales use clicks, calls and other sounds to navigate, communicate and forage, which can be disrupted by ship noise.
There has been no successful birth in the population since 2015. Losing J50 would also mean losing its reproductive potential.
"We are watching an endangered population," Balcomb said. "Unless we do something for salmon recovery, we're just not going to have these whales in the future."
An international team of Canadian and US whale experts has made intensive efforts to assist the killer whale since concerns were raised in mid-July.
Intervention teams injected her with antibiotics and tried to give her medications to help fight parasitic worms because they thought she had taken stool samples taken from her mother.
The teams also dropped live salmon from a boat while J50 and its pod swam behind. A test to determine if the fish could be used to administer drugs.
The images of drones taken earlier this month showed that J50 was much thinner than last year. His mother, J16, also declined last month.
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