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(CNN) – Scientists are monitoring the health status of a group of killer whales that are in serious danger of extinction in the Pacific Ocean, after it became known that Scarlet, an emaciated member of the pod, was dead.
"We did extensive research on Thursday and Friday, both by plane and by boat, but we did not detect Scarlet or her body," said Monday the spokeswoman of the National Administration of Oceans and Atmosphere (NOAA), Ruth Howell. "We canceled the search on Friday afternoon."
The most recent photos of Scarlet, also known as the J50, showed that the underweight of the 3 year old orca was in poor condition. It has not been seen since September 7th.
"Aerial photos from August and September showed that his condition had worsened," Howell said. "She was extremely emaciated and her condition was deteriorating."
Scarlet was part of a group of endangered, fast-disappearing southern US killer whales that frequent the Pacific Northwest. Teams working off the state of Washington and Vancouver, Canada, were trying to get food and antibiotics.
The SR3 nonprofit organization is associated with NOAA Fisheries and currently has a field team that is trying to get more information on pod health and welfare, said Howell.
"Working with a NOAA Fisheries research permit, we were able to pilot a custom-designed research drone over whales, to collect non-invasive images to measure the width and length of growth. "said the SR3 website.
A working group set up by Washington Governor Jay Inslee on September 24 will publish draft recommendations to help orcs.
"Losing Scarlet is particularly difficult after a truly heroic effort by so many people in the United States and Canada to save his life," said a statement from the task force. "And his suffering and death follow too closely the death of the J35 calf and the 17 days of Orca mourning that have drawn the world's attention to the Southern Resident Orcs, seriously threatened with extinction."
Lack of salmon kills orcs
Scarlet is part of the southern resident population that includes Tahlequah, whose grief has made headlines around the world after wearing her dead calf for days this month.
The Tahlequah calf died a few hours after his birth last month. Not wanting to let her body sink to the bottom of the ocean, she pushed him to the surface as she crossed the Pacific, off the coast of Canada and the northwestern United States.
One of the problems that affect whales is the lack of salmon, their main source of food due to overfishing for commercial consumption. And man-made devices, such as hydroelectric power sources, block their path to release eggs.
Orca whales do not often have babies, often or in large numbers, and when they do, the process is long. It takes a little less than a year and a half for a calf to fully develop in the uterus, and they are breastfeeding for another year.
The southern resident population has reduced to 75 animals and has not had a successful birth in three years. In the past 20 years, only 25% of babies have survived.
"The extinction is threatening," Ken Balcomb, founder of the Center for Whale Research, told CNN.
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