Losing a child is an unfathomable experience for most of us. Not only do animals suffer from the pain of this type of loss but animal parents do too.
Including other mammals like whales.
An adult female orca whale is making headlines after she was seen carrying the body of her deceased calf around the Pacific Northwest’s waters for more than two weeks.
The mother whale is being called Tahlequah, or J35 by scientists. According to the Huffington Post, it is believed that her baby died on July 24.
She had been noted in the press for swimming around with the deceased calf.
The calf is said to have died about a half hour after being born. But she was finally spotted on Aug. 11 swimming without baby near San Juan Island off Washington’s coast.
“It’s heartbreaking to watch,” Michael Milstein of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s West Coast Region told CNN. “This kind of behavior is like a period of mourning and has been seen before. What’s extraordinary about this is the length of time.”
The mother was said to have been carrying the baby and nudging it toward the surface so it wouldn’t sink to the ocean floor.
Scientists say grieving is a common thing for mammals like whales, dolphins, elephants, and deer.
This is especially so for the orca since it has a large brain that is complex and highly developed in the areas that deal with emotions.
“It’s not surprising they’re capable of deep feelings, and that’s what (Tahlequah) is showing,” Lori Marino, president of the Whale Sanctuary Project, said. “What exactly she’s feeling we’ll never know. But the bonds between mothers and calves are extremely strong. Everything we know about them says this is grieving.”
He said that she traveled for more than 1,000 miles with the body which eventually started to decompose.
“It is a grief, a genuine mourning,” he said.
“J35 frolicked past my window today with other J pod whales, and she looks vigorous and healthy,” Balcomb said. “The ordeal of her carrying a dead calf for at least seventeen days and 1,000 miles is now over, thank goodness.”
The female calf was the first to be born alive since 2015.
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