Other Southern Residents have been observed carrying newly deceased calves, but none of them have clung to their young quite as long as Tahlequah. “It’s usually been kind of one-off observations within a particular encounter as opposed to multiple weeks,” Michael Weiss, executive director at the Center for Whale Research, said at the news conference. “The general behavior, yes, other whales have done but not that length of behavior.”
Tahlequah carrying the deceased calf around is likely an expression of heartbreak, Joe Gaydos, the science director of the SeaDoc Society, a marine research organization at the University of California-Davis, said at the news conference. “Over the last few years, we have realized that we have the same neurotransmitters that they have. We have the same hormones that they have, why shouldn’t we also have the same emotions that they have,” Gaydos said. “I think it’s fair to say that she is grieving or mourning.”
Tahlequah is using a significant amount of energy to push the baby whale’s carcass, a behavior Hanson says could potentially do more harm than good in the short term, especially since she has not had time to forage for food and is physically weaker from her last successful birth. “It is a concern that she’s expending a lot of energy to try to take care of this calf that she’s lost,” Hanson said.
According to the center, the death of any Southern Resident killer whale calf is a “tremendous loss,” but the death of Tahlequah’s calf is “particularly devastating, not just because she was a female, who could have one day potentially led her own matriline but also given the history of her mother.”
Contributing: Wyatte Grantham-Philips and Jay Cannon, USA TODAY; Associated Press
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Tahlequah the orca: Southern Resident killer whale grieves another loss
