On Tuesday the SeaWorld San Diego witnessed the death of an orca called Kasatka. The killer whale was suffering from the respiratory infection for a long time.
The orca was around 42-year old when she breathed her last. The park authority describes the whale as a beloved matriarch of the orca family. According to SeaWorld, Kasatka was getting treatment for a long time for the bacterial respiratory infection.
During this lengthy treatment, the appetite and the health of the orca declined drastically for the last several days. Finally, the veterinarians and caretakers of Kasatka decided to humanely euthanize her. They took this difficult decision to prevent compromising Kasatka's quality of life. The orca breathed her last on Aug. 15, 2017.
The orcas can survive for fifty to eighty years in the wild. This year another orca named Tilikum died at the SeaWorld San Diego from the same lung disease. The whale was 35 years old and became familiar to many people with the documentary "Blackfish". Now the recently died Kasatka was captured near the Iceland coast in 1978.
Kasatka had a good number of descendants all born at the SeaWorld. This orca gave birth to four whales and became the grandmother of the six whales. She was also the great-grandmother of the two whales.
According to the Huffington Post, Kasatka died after the death of another three months old orca at the SeaWorld San Antonio. The killer whale died last month. The orca was popularly known as Kyara. At the time of death, the killer whale was suffering from pneumonia.
According to SeaWorld, the dolphins and the whales commonly die from pneumonia and the bacterial lung infections, both in captivity and, in the wild. Though, some experts about whale don't agree with this view. Last month science director of the SeaDoc Society, Joseph Gaydos, said to LiveScience that the actual disease hit the wild orcas is not yet clear. Notably, in 2008 Kasatka, the killer whale, was diagnosed suffering from the said health problem.
