Indian envoy warns of 'big red line,' days after charges laid in Nijjar case
India's envoy to Canada insists relations between the two countries are positive overall, despite what he describes as 'a lot of noise.'
Helping kids well into their adulthood is something many parents are familiar with.
It turns out that killer whales have that in common with humans. But only for their sons, not their daughters.
For female killer whales, the sacrifices they continue to make to care for their sons well after they are weaned is negatively affecting their rate of reproduction, according to new scientific research.
And the effects of that behaviour have implications on the southern resident killer whale population, which has been in decline since the early 1990s. Only 73 members of this specific and endangered group of orcas were known to be alive at the time of writing, authors state.
If a large portion of female whales of reproductive age end up with male offspring, researchers expect their reproductive capacity to be reduced, based on what they've observed.
The study, published in the journal Current Biology on Wednesday, looked at fish-eating killer whales in the inland waters of Washington State and B.C. Known as southern resident killer whales, this population is one of two that receives special protection under the law, due to its decline.
Researchers used demographic data from the Center for Whale Research in Washington State on 40 female whales from 1982 to 2021. They also conducted photographic surveys of the population.
A statistical analysis model was used to determine whether a female whale had successfully reproduced in a given year, and if that calf survived its first year of life.
The study found that giving birth to sons reduces the annual odds of subsequent reproduction by 70 per cent.
What was observed represents an “extreme example of extended maternal care,” researchers said.
For all calves, the presence of their mothers increases the chances of survival across their lifespan, especially for males. The survival benefits the mothers provide include food sharing and their “leadership during foraging” as the calves learn to find food themselves.
But the researchers found that sons do not become less costly to mothers as they age. Mother whales share food with their sons even into their adulthood, when they do not provide the same help to their daughters.
One reason for this is the relative size of male whales, which means they need more food to grow, according to other research.
“Males were consistently costly regardless of age,” those behind the more recent study state. This is the first direct evidence of “lifetime maternal investment” in an iteroparous animal – meaning an animal that can reproduce multiple times.
The authors also theorize that another factor in the difference in treatment may be that female whales recognize that their daughters reproduce in the same group, which can lead to “reproductive conflict.” A son’s offspring are more likely to be born in another matriline, meaning those offspring are less likely to compete with the mother.
As a result, there are benefits to “boosting” an adult son’s survival as “late-life reproductive conflict with daughters” creates pressure against an extended reproductive lifespan, the authors state.
Those benefits could outweigh the additional burden that sons are to mothers and the reproductive impact of needing to provide extended care to them, they say.
More work is needed around this “extreme life history strategy” to understand its evolution and to see if other species rely on their mothers well into adulthood, at a cost to reproductive health, the researchers said.
India's envoy to Canada insists relations between the two countries are positive overall, despite what he describes as 'a lot of noise.'
With Donald Trump sitting just feet away, Stormy Daniels testified Tuesday at the former president's hush money trial about a sexual encounter the porn actor says they had in 2006 that resulted in her being paid to keep silent during the presidential race 10 years later.
The U.S. paused a shipment of bombs to Israel last week over concerns that Israel was approaching a decision on launching a full-scale assault on the southern Gaza city of Rafah against the wishes of the U.S.
Footage from dozens of security cameras in the area of Drake’s Bridle Path mansion could be the key to identifying the suspect responsible for shooting and seriously injuring a security guard outside the rapper’s sprawling home early Tuesday morning, a former Toronto homicide detective says.
A chicken farmer near Mattawa made an 'eggstraordinary' find Friday morning when she discovered one of her hens laid an egg close to three times the size of an average large chicken egg.
Susan Buckner, best known for playing peppy Rydell High School cheerleader Patty Simcox in the 1978 classic movie musical 'Grease,' has died. She was 72.
Accused killer Jeremy Skibicki could have a challenging time convincing a judge that he is not criminally responsible for the deaths of four Indigenous women, a legal analyst says.
A Calgary bylaw requiring businesses to charge a minimum bag fee and only provide single-use items when requested has officially been tossed.
Two Nova Scotia men are dead after a boat they were travelling in sank in the Annapolis River in Granville Centre, N.S., on Monday.
An Ontario man says he paid more than $7,700 for a luxury villa he found on a popular travel website -- but the listing was fake.
Whether passionate about Poirot or hungry for Holmes, Winnipeg mystery obsessives have had a local haunt for over 30 years in which to search out their latest page-turners.
Eighty-two-year-old Susan Neufeldt and 90-year-old Ulrich Richter are no spring chickens, but their love blossomed over the weekend with their wedding at Pine View Manor just outside of Rosthern.
Alberta Ballet's double-bill production of 'Der Wolf' and 'The Rite of Spring' marks not only its final show of the season, but the last production for twin sisters Alexandra and Jennifer Gibson.
A mother goose and her goslings caused a bit of a traffic jam on a busy stretch of the Trans-Canada Highway near Vancouver Saturday.
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
A group of SaskPower workers recently received special recognition at the legislature – for their efforts in repairing one of Saskatchewan's largest power plants after it was knocked offline for months following a serious flood last summer.
A police officer on Montreal's South Shore anonymously donated a kidney that wound up drastically changing the life of a schoolteacher living on dialysis.