The orca mother has been pushing her dead calf around with her nose for several days, off the west coast of the United States. She carries her daughter’s body on her head and grabs its little fin with her teeth.
Just like she did in 2018 – when Tahlequah spent 17 days carrying another dead calf – before the waves swept it away.
“It’s so much harder to see now that she’s lost another one,” said Brad Hanson, a scientist at the Northwest Fisheries Science Center in Seattle during a press conference on Thursday.
– Tahlequah uses so much of her energy to cling to the dead calf that she has stopped looking for food.