Tahlequah, the Southern Resident orca who carried her dead calf for 17 days in 2018, is mourning the loss of another newborn, raising concerns about her health.

Mr. Hanson said on Thursday that he did not know why the female calf, who lived for a few days during the last weeks of December, had died. The mother, one of only a few dozen of its type of orca, was seen carrying the dead female calf on Wednesday, though might have been doing so for longer.

An endangered orca mother has been carrying her dead newborn calf on her snout for nearly a week around Washington’s Puget Sound.