D istressing images of a grieving killer whale carrying her dead calf on her back for 16 days have struck the hearts of people across the world. The mother was first spotted carrying the dead calf off the shore of Vancouver Island on July 24 and was later seen still holding on to it more than two weeks later. Killer whales, or orcas, are known to carry their dead calves for as long as a week, but scientists believe this mother “sets a record” as they continued to track her movements. The calf is believed to have died on 24 July, but researchers at the Centre for Whale Research said they do not know the cause of its death. The baby orca whale being pushed by her mother after being born off the Canada coast near Victoria, British Columbia / AP Senior scientist at the centre Ken Balcomb said the mother's extended display of grief is unusual. "We've seen mother whales carry dead babies briefly, for parts of a day,” he told the BBC. “We saw one a few years back for a couple days. But this sets a record.” Deborah Giles, a research scientist and research director for nonprofit organisation Wild Orca, said watching the orca with her calf was emotionally draining. "I am sobbing. I can't believe she is still carrying her calf around," she told the Seattle Times. "I am gravely concerned for the health and mental wellbeing of J35." Canada and the US list the Southern Resident killer whale as endangered. For food they depend on Chinook salmon which have been in dramatic decline in recent years. The community of three pods, made up of some 75 whales, including the mother who was named J35, is frequently seen off the southern coast of Vancouver Island and in inland marine waters of Washington.<doc-sep>"The carcass has probably sunk to the bottom of these inland marine waters of the Salish Sea [between Canada and the US], and researchers may not get a chance to examine it for necropsy (autopsy of an animal)."<doc-sep>If you need a good cry today, you should know that there is an orca that humans have dubbed J35 — a killer whale from a species that is endangered to the point where it may soon go extinct — who has been mourning her dead calf by pushing its body through the ocean off the Pacific Northwest coast for the past ten days. Tahlequah, as the orca has been nicknamed, did this following the unexpected death of her calf only 30 minutes after it was born, according to National Geographic. She is a 20-year-old southern resident killer whale, a species of orca that is so endangered that only three pods exist . . . and the combined population of those three pods equals only 75 members. As a result, if the species doesn't start reproducing again, experts believe they will have lost the ability to do so within five years. It is unclear whether a southern resident killer whale like J35 is capable of realizing the existential implications of her calf's death for her species. Yes, whales are extremely intelligent and emotionally complex animals. Even if J35 isn't mourning the future of her species — or, for that matter, is even aware that it is in peril — there are plenty of reasons to believe that she is experiencing severe emotional trauma due to the death of her child. "I do know it’s not the first time this has been observed in J Pod, the first time being about 15 years ago. The whales have a very strong drive to look after their offspring and this evidently extends to neonates that die at birth," John Ford, an orca researcher at the University of British Columbia, told National Geographic. It isn't like this trait is limited to animals. Humans have similar rituals and grieving processes when infants die shortly after birth or during childbirth. Indeed, many mammals exhibit behaviors that hint that they feel grief on par with humans when their offspring die. So, too, are animals capable of finding emotional comfort in cradling their offspring's remains after the fact of their death. Notably, there are risks to J35's behavior. "If J35 keeps at this, we could lose her," Deborah Giles, research scientist for the University of Washington Center for Conservation Biology and research director for nonprofit Wild Orca, told The Seattle Times. The concern is that J35 needs to save her energy so that she can survive and attempt to reproduce again, as she is one of the few females in the pod still young enough to be able to do so. While other orcas have been helping her with the body of her deceased calf, that may not be enough to help her conserve her energy. This concern is compounded by the fact that one of the major factors contributing to the endangerment of this species of orca is the simultaneous endangerment of their primary food source, chinook salmon. A lack of chinook salmon has caused mass starvation among the whale pods, which explains why so many of them have been dying off and could explain why J35's calf also passed away. READ MORE: Meeting a "wonder pig" made me reconsider eating meat Nor is J35 the only orca whale that authorities are concerned about. This excerpt from a Seattle Times article sums it up: The federal government is marshaling an emergency response for J50, the starving 4-year-old orca whale, which will include feeding live chinook — dosed with medicine — to the ailing animal who may only have days to live. The young whale is so emaciated, the back of her cranium is visible. A worrisome white patch has also been spotted on the back of her head, near her blowhole. It could be an infection . . . The crisis comes as another member of the southern-resident orcas is clinging to her dead calf for a 10th day, unwilling to let it go. The calf born July 24 lived for only half an hour. Now officials are racing to put together a plan to prevent another death in the critically endangered whale clan. Reached while throwing together his gear to head out on his research boat to get breath samples from the whale, wildlife biologist Brad Hanson of the Northwest Fisheries Science Center in Seattle said J50 has lost about 20 percent of her body weight, and getting fish into her is as much about rehydrating the whale as feeding her. “There are a lot of ifs, whether or not she will even take fish,” Hanson said. “The big concern is the decrease in hydration level; that just becomes very concerning. “Her survival could be only a few days. She has continued to decline.” While it's a positive sign that J35's plight has gone viral, it is darkly telling that J50's situation is less widely known. One suspects that this is because the story of J35 has a level of novelty to it: We don't expect animals to display traits which clearly demonstrate their emotional vulnerability and which cannot be logically attributed to any other factor. By contrast, we are used to members of endangered species slowly starving to death or succumbing to illnesses as a result of that starvation — and as a result, J50's plight doesn't make the same headlines as that of J35. And, it is worth noting, that the salmon species which are endangered have reached that situation due at least in part to climate change. Hence humanity has been provided with yet another example of how, even though we mourn for animals who act like ourselves, we still haven't mustered the collective will to stop engaging in the practices that cause their suffering in the first place.<doc-sep>A mother orca whale is still carrying the body of her calf 17 days after it died, in what some experts say may be an unprecedented testament to the strength of the species’ familial bonds. The whale, known as Tahlequah or J35, is one of just 75 Southern Resident killer whales left in the ocean, and her calf — which died minutes after it was born last month — was the group’s first live birth since 2015. Tahlequah has been spotted in waters off the Pacific Northwest multiple times over the past two weeks, often pushing her calf’s corpse through the water or swimming with it balancing on her forehead. Other members of the pod have even taken turns carrying its body. The heartbreaking display of apparent grief has captivated onlookers — and stymied experts. The Southern Resident killer whales’ endangered status and cultural significance in both the U.S. and Canada has made them arguably the most studied whales in the world, says Peter Ross, a killer whale expert and vice president of research at conservation group Ocean Wise. But despite that close observation, Ross says, experts haven’t seen anything like this before, which makes it all the more noteworthy. “This is unusual behavior,” Ross says. “It’s not normal. We haven’t seen it before. What it means — who knows?” Dennis Christen, senior director of zoological operations at the Georgia Aquarium, says the strong bonds between mother whales and their calves can prompt this type of behavior for short periods of time. But staying with a dead calf for 17 days is unusual, he agrees, even for a such a social species. “We do know that animals form very strong bonds, and killer whales are very well known to have very strong social relationships with their family members,” Christen says. “[Tahlequah] is an experienced mom — she’s had a calf before — so she’s doing what she has a very strong instinct to do.” Southern Resident killer whales may have an especially strong tendency toward this type of behavior, Ross says. Whereas Bigg’s killer whales, which eat marine mammals, tend to hunt in small groups because they need the element of surprise, Southern Resident whales’ fish-only diet, which doesn’t necessitate stealthy hunting, allows them to travel in large groups, Ross explains. This feeding pattern builds a family-centric culture, which may be compounded by the fact that females have only a few calves during their lifetimes, making them very close with their young, Ross says. “These are highly intelligent, highly social animals, and they have cultures,” Ross says. “They’re like family units.” Tahlequah’s past and present behavior illustrates that fact. Two years ago, Christen remembers, Tahlequah’s sister died and left behind a nursing calf. Tahlequah “adopted” the calf and tried to care for it, until the baby ultimately died without its mother, Christen says. Those incredible acts have led many observers to assign human emotions to Tahlequah — a natural tendency, Ross says. “One of the reasons the story is rather heart-wrenching is the fact that we’ve grown to truly marvel at this iconic species and I think we see a little bit of us in them,” Ross says. “We look for things that we might understand or explain on the basis of our own experiences.” Nonetheless, it’s hard to say for sure whether Tahlequah’s behavior means she has more empathy or maternal instinct than other animals, Christen says. Still, it does suggest she’s likely grieving in some form. “It’s very tough for us to place those types of emotions or qualify those types of emotions for animals,” Christen says. “We certainly don’t know the extent to which she feels sorrow, but she’s clearly reacting to a loss.” Though scientists have said they won’t separate mother and baby, the reaction has gone on long enough to raise alarm bells, especially since so few Southern Resident killer whales remain, Christen says. (In fact, scientists are currently trying to treat another member of Tahlequah’s pod, J50, with antibiotics, since the whale shows worrying signs of malnutrition and infection.) “She’s expending more energy trying to carry this calf around. Is she eating what she needs to eat? Is she already nutritionally stressed and this is complicating matters?” Christen says. “There should be a strong sense of concern for her well-being.” The experts say it’s impossible to predict how long Tahlequah may continue her behavior, but Christen says other species, such as primates, have been observed acting similarly, stopping only when the deceased baby begins to decompose and become unrecognizable. The same may be true for Tahlequah, he says, but only time will tell. As the world watches, Tahlequah’s behavior should be a reminder of how little humans really know about the inner workings of animals, Christen says. “We’re talking about animals we think we know a lot about,” he says, “but ultimately, there’s so much more we have to learn.” Get our Space Newsletter. Sign up to receive the week's news in space. Please enter a valid email address. * The request timed out and you did not successfully sign up. Please attempt to sign up again. Sign Up Now An unexpected error has occurred with your sign up. Please try again later. Check the box if you do not wish to receive promotional offers via email from TIME. You can unsubscribe at any time. By signing up you are agreeing to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Thank you! For your security, we've sent a confirmation email to the address you entered. Click the link to confirm your subscription and begin receiving our newsletters. If you don't get the confirmation within 10 minutes, please check your spam folder. Write to Jamie Ducharme at jamie.ducharme@time.com.<doc-sep>
Whales are stranded at Farewell Spit near Nelson, New Zealand Friday, Feb. 10, 2017. New Zealand volunteers formed a human chain in the water at a remote beach on Friday as they tried to save about 100 whales after more than 400 of the creatures beached themselves in one of the worst whale strandings in the nation's history. About three-quarters of the pilot whales were already dead when they were found Friday morning at Farewell Spit at the tip of the South Island. (Tim Cuff/New Zealand Herald via AP) Female orca Wikie swims with her calf born by artificial insemination on April 19, 2011 at Marineland animal exhibition park in the French Riviera city of Antibes, southeastern France. Rescuers attempt attempt to push stranded whales back into the ocean at Ujong Kareng beach in Aceh province, Indonesia, Monday, Nov. 13, 2017. An official said 10 whales were stranded at the beach and attracted hundreds of onlookers who posed for pictures with them. (AP Photo/Syahrol Rizal) More than 150 pilot whales beached themselves on the west coast of Australia, and despite efforts to rescue them, the vast majority died, the Australia Parks and Wildlife Service announced Friday. Three members from the Queensland Boating and Fisheries Marine Animal Release Team cut the whale free from shark net (CNN) — A female orca whale is still apparently grieving her dead calf and still swimming with its body after more than two weeks, authorities say. “It’s heartbreaking to watch,” said Michael Milstein of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s West Coast Region. “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 adult – Tahlequah, or J35 as the whale has come to be known by researchers – and corpse were last seen definitively Thursday afternoon, 17 days after the baby’s birth. The female calf died after a few hours. The mother, preventing the body from sinking to the ocean floor, has been carrying it and nudging it toward the surface of the Pacific off the coast of Canada and the northwestern US. Orcas, also called killer whales, are highly social, and this pod was spotted Friday afternoon near Vancouver, British Columbia. Another struggling female in the same pod – J50, also known as Scarlet – was shot with antibiotics to fight an infection, since scientists worry that she has been losing a frightening amount of weight. These are grim signs. The Southern Resident population the females belong to has about 75 members, and has not had a successful birth in three years. In the last 20 years, only 25% of the babies have survived. ’Deep feelings’ not uncommon Scientists says grieving is common among mammals such as whales, dolphins, elephants and deer. Evidence shows the orca brain is large, complex and highly developed in areas dealing with emotions, said Lori Marino, president of the Whale Sanctuary Project. “It’s not surprising they’re capable of deep feelings, and that’s what (Tahlequah) is showing,” Marino 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.” Center for Whale Research founder Ken Balcomb said it’s “unprecedented” for an orca to keep this going for so long. He said the mother has traveled more than 1,000 miles with the corpse, which has begun to decompose. “It is a grief, a genuine mourning,” he said. Dwindling food source The problem for this group of killer whales is a dwindling food supply, scientists say. Most killer whales eat a wider diet, but this particular group of about 75 resident orcas eats just salmon, which have been overfished in the area for commercial consumption. Manmade contraptions, like hydroelectric power sources, block the salmons’ path to release eggs. Orca whales also do not have babies often or in large numbers, and when they do, it is a long process. It takes a calf a little under a year and a half to fully develop in the womb, and they nurse for another year. The Southern Resident population has reduced to 75 animals, and has not had a successful birth in three years. In the past 20 years, only 25% of the babies have survived. CNN’s AJ Willingham contributed to this story.