Grieving whale finally lets baby go
IN THE saddest of partings, a grieving mother killer whale has swum away at last from her dead calf after more than two weeks.
The mother, named Tahlequah by watchers, is pictured carrying the calf.
She gave birth on July 24 but the baby soon died.
Yet she refused to abandon her calf, keeping it afloat with her head for a record-breaking 17 days. She was so determined to try to save it that she pushed it through the Pacific south of Vancouver Island in Canada for 1,000 miles.
Then over the weekend Tahlequah was spotted back with her pod off the US coast.
The Centre for Whale Research in Washington State recorded her chasing a school of salmon.
A resident of San Juan Island, between Seattle and Vancouver, had described seeing the whale with her baby and other females.
He wrote: “At sunset, a group of five to six gathered at the mouth of a cove in a close, tight-knit circle, staying at the surface for nearly two hours. As the light dimmed, I was able to watch them continue what seemed to be a ritual.
“They stayed directly centred in the moonbeam, even as it moved.
“The lighting was too dim to see if the baby was still being kept afloat.
“It was both sad and special to witness.
“My heart goes out to Tahlequah and to her beautiful baby.”