Ran's Calf was a 2-day-old female Hybrid killer whale calf who lived at Nanki Shirahama Adventure World in Japan. She was born one month premature on August 26th, 2004 at Nanki Shirahama Adventure World. Her mother was Ran, an Icelandic killer whale, and her father was Kyu, a Japanese killer whale. NSAW-OO-B0401 passed away on August 28th, 2004 due to complications associated with a broken skull.
Birth[]
In May 2003, Ran became pregnant with her first calf, sired by Kyu. The calf was greatly anticipated by the staff at Adventure World since they had been waiting 5 years for Kyu to reach sexual maturity. Blueprints had been made to 'baby proof' the stadium prior to the calf's birth. They restricted the number of shows Ran participated in and only allowed her to do very basic behaviors.
Despite the fact that Ran was due in mid-September, on August 24th, 2004, a trainer spotted a tiny pair of flukes coming from Ran's genital slit. Kyu and Goro were sent into the back pools and Ran was put into the main stadium.
After 1 hour and 30 minutes of labor, Ran's Calf was born and she took her first breath. Ran immediately showed no interest in her calf and made threatening vocalizations towards her. Ran went towards the back pools to get away from her calf, but the calf followed. Kyu was reported to have been in a "frenzied" state and he bit onto the calf's tail and yanked her through the gate into his pool. He tossed her body repeatedly until the gate was opened to the stadium pool, where he seemed to calm down and began to nudge the calf along the water's surface.
The calf was taken to a medical pool in an attempt to save her, where she was placed in a stretcher and tube fed artificial formula.
Death[]
Despite the efforts of the Adventure World staff, the calf would die on August 28th, 2004 due to a skull fracture caused by Kyu's bite. The following day, Ran also died due to septicemia caused by Corynebacterium ulcerans bacteria, which likely caused the calf's premature birth.
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