A dead baby orca and the intense grief of animals

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. Read more...

More about Science, Animals, Orcas, Killer Whales, and Grieving

from Mashable https://ift.tt/2KRqLlG