Ailing orca J50 likely dead: whale researcher

SEATTLE — Teams are searching for an ailing, critically endangered orca that a scientist who tracks the whale population in the Pacific Northwest says is likely dead.
Experts have been preparing last-ditch efforts to save the nearly four-year-old, emaciated whale that included the possibility of capturing and treating her.
Ken Balcomb of the Center for Whale Research said Thursday he believes the whale known as J50 “is gone.”
Michael Milstein, a spokesman for NOAA Fisheries, sa