The orca, her dead calf and us

These animals feel emotions, which strikes an emotional chord in us. We need to turn this empathy into action to save them

Among the many quirks of human nature, one that has always struck me as particularly worthwhile is the tendency to project our own feelings onto other animals. This seems to me like a fast route to empathy, a way to bring us closer to different species. But many scientists disagree. They call this anthropomorphism, and they discourage it. They cringe when a viral video of a piglet apparently twerking to a Rihanna song inspires hundreds of comments praising the animal’s confidence, sense of rhythm and musical taste. What if the piglet is actually displaying aggression, albeit to a catchy beat? Is it dancing, or is the piglet freaked out? And who says Grumpy Cat is really grumpy?

At times, interpreting animal behaviour through a human lens might be misleading, silly or even harmful. But at other times — and they occur more often than science would care to admit — perceiving ourselves in these others is exactly the right response. When an animal’s emotional state is obvious to anyone with eyes and a heart.

Such is the case with Tahlequah, also known as J35, a 20-year-old female orca from the critically endangered southern resident population based near Puget Sound, Washington. On July 24, she gave birth to a female calf, who lived for just 30 minutes. The calf was emaciated, lacking enough blubber to stay afloat. Tahlequah kept the body at the surface, supporting it on her head or holding it in her mouth. Orcas and other cetacean species have been observed carrying their dead, but rarely longer than a day. Tahlequah has been swimming with her daughter’s body through choppy seas for, as of Friday, 10 days and counting, on what social media observers and orca researchers call a “tour of grief.” They’re right.

Orcas are among the earth’s most socially sophisticated mammals. They live in matrilineal groups that might include four generations, with the oldest grannies running the show. Matriarchs have been known to pass the century mark; they’re one of just a handful of species, including humans, that goes through menopause. As with all of nature’s successful adaptations, there’s a reason for this: The matriarchs serve as midwives, babysitters, navigators and teachers.

While we can never hope to fully grasp another species’ experiences, orca behaviour and neuroanatomy point to a complex inner life. Their brains are impressive, bigger and more elaborated in some ways than the brains we consider the gold standard: our own. The orca’s paralimbic lobe is highly developed, as is its insular cortex, both of which relate to social emotions and awareness. Like the human brain, the orca brain contains von Economo neurons: rare, specialised cells that relate to empathy, communication, intuition and social intelligence.

So orcas feel emotions, however exotically, which in turn strikes an emotional chord in us. Yes, they’re smart, but our fascination with orcas and other cetaceans also stems from something more esoteric. On some level, we sense how connected we are.

But these days we’ve made such a mess of the marine environment that even its sovereigns struggle to survive. There are only 75 southern residents left, and without a major change in circumstance, their prospects are dim. They haven’t had a successful birth in the last three years. These whales contend with a host of stresses — pollution, development and industrial marine noise, to cite a few — but their main problem is malnutrition. The southern residents feed primarily on Chinook salmon; overfishing and habitat destruction have made those fish not just scarce but contaminated with everything from flame retardants and lead to Prozac and cocaine.

Heartbreak for Tahlequah is an appropriate starting point. In a way, it’s the easy part. What’s harder is turning our shared sense of grief for this mother into an impetus to solve the problems plaguing the dwindling southern resident orca population. If we aren’t willing to turn our empathy into action, then one day in the near future we will explain to our children and grandchildren how incredible the orcas were, and how bad we felt about their fate. How their pain resonated with us and caught our attention. How deeply we felt their loss. Just not enough to do what was required to save them.