Granny, who was assumed to be the world's oldest Orca, is now presumed dead. That's bad news, for sure, but there's a silver lining: She was probably over 100 years old! That's old!
Researchers first identified Granny in her Pacific Northwest-based pod in 1976. They used the ages of the whales she swam with, including her children, to determine her age. At the time, they believed she was 45 years old, but then later determined she was closer to 76. The researches followed her closely in all subsequent years, but she went missing in the fall of 2016.
“Perhaps other dedicated whale-watchers have seen her since then, but by year’s end she is officially missing from the population, and with regret we now consider her deceased,” wrote Ken Balcomb, director of the Center for Whale Research in San Juan Island, Washington.
As People points out, the fact that Granny lived to over 100 years old proves how much the whales kept in captivity are missing out on:
In her golden years, Granny could still keep up with the rest of her pod, swimming hundreds of miles some weeks to help hunt for fish. This long life in open water is in stark contrast to the world of SeaWorld orcas like Tilikum. The infamous orca spent almost all of his mere 36 years in captivity, stuck in a small tank and trained to perform for years before becoming ill with a bacterial infection and passing away.
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