Tahlequah, the Orca: Grief in the Animal Kingdom

Recently, the story of the mother Orca, Tahlequah, showing her grief over the death of her dead baby made national news. A Tale of Spiritual Evolution – Tahlequah, the Orca: Grief in the Animal Kingdom We all witnessed and accompanied the heartbreaking story of Tahlequah, the Mother Orca that during a journey of 1000 miles carried her dead calf because, like any human mother, she felt grief over the loss of her offspring and was not prepared to let go. Orcas are very social whales, and their pods generally have very well knitted social and family bonds. During her process of mourning, Tahlequah, the Mother Orca carried her baby while trying to keep him afloat for 17 days and almost got lost from her original pod which, in its turn, respected her pain by keeping a close but at a loving observant distance.   Is animal mourning really a surprise to us? Animal morning is a concept disputed by many animal researchers, despite the facts and the many examples that have been provided by study groups of mammals and primates presenting signs of grief, suffering, and mourning in the face of the death of some of their group members. The behavior of these animals can also help in understanding the attitudes and rituals of mourning in our own society. Humans, like all primates, have strong emotional relationships with friends and relatives. The emotional and social ties, also seen in the cases of chimpanzees, monkeys, and whales and dolphins make it easy to understand how the death of people close to us is significant in our society. Patrick Tkaczynski, a researcher at the University of Roehampton in the UK and co-author of the research with Gibraltar monkeys, told the BBC that the behavior of these animals is not surprising. “Gibraltar monkeys are known…

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