Orcas aren’t the only animals who intensely grieve their dead

For 17 days, the killer whale Tahlequah kept her decomposing calf afloat in ocean waters north of Seattle. Sometimes, the lifeless calf would sink, and Tahlequah would dive down and push it back up to the surface. But after 400 hours of this trying effort, Tahlequah apparently accepted fate on August 11, and let her deceased young fall to the depths of the Salish Sea.

This grim event has been widely viewed as a show of intense grieving for the loss of a young calf, perpetuating an unsettling trend for these troubled animals. The endangered whale population here, facing a plummeting salmon supply, are in a bad place: A calf has not survived in three years.

Although we can’t commune with animals, it seems there’s little doubt Tahlequah, also known as J35, was exhibiting grief, an emotion increasingly recognized in animals, from cattle to elephants. 

“There seems like there’s a refusal to accept the death,” Preston Foerder, who researches animal cognition and behavior at the University of Tennessee, Chattanooga, said of Tahlequah’s behavior.

“If we were to see similar behavior in humans, we would call it grief,” Foerder said.

This is little surprise to many researchers who spend time around killer whales. The mammals have been observed living socially complex lives, largely made possible by their advanced brains. 

“It screams intelligence,” Lori Marino, a neuroscientist who has been studying the minds of cetaceans for over two decades, said in an interview. “They are impressive brains.”

Killer whales have an “elaborate structure” in their brains, known as the paralimbic lobe, that bridges the emotional part of their minds to their decision making, said Marino.

“You’re not surprised at the depth of what they feel,” said Marino, who is now the president of the Whale Sanctuary Project, which aims to build a marine home for captive whales.

Yet, one doesn’t need an advanced mind to experience grief. 

“We’re interested in studying what big-brained animals do, but when it comes to farmed animals, we don’t really want to know,” Barbara King, an emeritus professor of anthropology at the College of William and Mary, said in an interview.

King has watched dairy cows, with their young taken from them, mourn their losses and attempt to seek out their young, in vain.

“The mother clearly, clearly grieves,” said King, who authored the book How Animals Grieve.

Javelinas — hairy hog-like animals in U.S. deserts — have been spotted sleeping next to the bodies of their dead. 

A marmoset monkey in the Amazon was observed  attending to a mortally injured mate after the animal fell from a tree and cracked its skull on the ground, said King. And Japanese macaques carry around their infant dead as the bodies decompose.

“They [monkeys] won’t give up on it [the infant] till it’s fallen apart,” said Foerder.

But the endangered killer whales in these waters off of Vancouver Island, known collectively as the Southern Resident killer whale population (SRKW), may have an even more compounded pain. The whales have been in decline for decades, largely because the nutritious salmon the toothed-cetaceans rely on have been overfished.

The Salish Sea, north of Seattle, Washington encompasses the waterways and straits around Vancouver Island.

And these whales aren’t exactly spitting out offspring even in the best conditions. 

It takes 10 years or longer for a female to become sexually mature, and then it takes 15 to 18 months for a female to give birth to a single calf, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

“The loss of a single whale is huge in the life history of these animals,” Marc Bekoff, professor emeritus of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Colorado, said in an interview.

It appears other killer whales, aside from the grieving mother, may have acknowledged this reality as well. 

According to The Center for Whale Research, the organization that has been monitoring these whales for decades, the killer whales performed a ritual-like gathering in a circle on July 24, after the calf died. There have also been unconfirmed reports, noted Bekoff and King, that other whales helped keep the dead calf afloat during the 17-day period.

If so, this group grieving may serve a greater purpose.

“Grieving brings surviving members of a group together,” said Bekoff. “It’s like a wake.”

“It’s possible that the group grieving is a way for them to say, ‘Everything is okay – the group is still here,’” he said.

Javilinas in southwest Texas.

It’s also possible that Tahlequah’s behavior was influenced more by evolutionary pressures, than by grieving itself.

“In terms of evolution, all behaviors should have some sort of purpose,” said Foerder, noting that Tahlequah could have been repeatedly pushing the calf up to breath, until it eventually became overwhelmingly apparent the calf was dead.

“Is she grieving, or just continuing to keep it alive?” asked Foerder. “It’s hard to nail down.”

Still, King said there’s little doubt this was extreme grieving behavior, as Tahlequah’s behavior altered dramatically after her calf perished. 

“I would never claim to know what an animal thinks or feels,” said King. “The animals themselves are physically expressing this behavior.”