||| FROM THE SEATTLE TIMES |||
She is still out there: cruising miles uncounted, leading her family to fish.
L25 is the world’s oldest known living wild orca, the uncontested reigning matriarch of the southern resident orcas that frequent Puget Sound. She ascended to that post after the death of J2, in 2017 at an estimated age of 105.
No one knows exactly how old L25 is, said Michael Weiss, research director of the nonprofit Center for Whale Research.
But “our best estimate is she is approaching 100 years old right now,” Weiss said. The original estimate for her year of birth was 1928 when the center’s census of the J, K and L pods began in 1976, Weiss said. His personal guess is that she might be anywhere from her mid-80s to her mid-90s.
But who’s counting — she is going strong whatever her age. “She looks fine, she looks good; these old whales don’t outwardly age very much,” Weiss said. “They don’t get wrinkles; they don’t get decrepit.
“She is very much large and in charge.”
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