A Humpback Whale Mom Stayed With Her Stillborn Calf, Repeatedly Touching It and Staring Into Its Eyes. Was She Grieving?

After giving birth to a stillborn calf, a humpback whale mother repeatedly approached and touched her dead offspring. While the behavior may resemble grief, scientists caution against assuming that animals experience or express emotions the same way humans do. Researchers describe the tragic scene, which unfolded last year off the coast of Queensland, Australia, in a study published September 16 in the journal Discover Animals.

Study co-author Andrew Mulville was fishing with his son on the morning of July 17, 2025, when he heard from the team at Sea World Foundation, the Australian environmental nonprofit where he works as a rescue boat captain. Concerned members of the public had reported two humpbacks lingering in shallow water roughly half a mile from the Gold Coast near the Palm Beach Reef, so Mulville headed over to check on them. After watching the whales for 30 minutes or so, Mulville noticed that one of the whales got into a vertical position with its tail pointing skyward.

Then, he spotted an amniotic membrane—part of a placenta—floating on the surface, suggesting that the massive marine mammal had given birth. But Mulville didn’t see a calf, so he grabbed his GoPro and started recording. The underwater footage revealed that the whale had given birth to a stillborn calf, which had subsequently sunk to the seafloor.

The mother repeatedly swam down to the calf’s body, trying to look it in the eye, touching it with her head and pectoral fin, and resting near it on the seafloor. When humpbacks birth live calves, they usually try to push their offspring to the water’s surface to encourage breathing. That didn’t happen in this case, making the researchers wonder whether the mother knew her calf was dead.

The other adult whale remained nearby, likely acting as an escort as the pregnant female prepared to give birth. Humpback whales of both sexes commonly accompany pregnant females and may also travel alongside mothers and their newborn calves during migration. Elephant responses to death Asian elephants have been observed standing guard over the bodies of their dead peers, changing their postures, making noises and investigating and touching the carcasses.

They’ve also been known to bury their dead. Even for Mulville, who has spent the last 25 years rescuing and caring for whales, it was a “pretty powerful moment.” “But I suppose at the same time it was nature, and pretty emotional underwater with the sounds of both the mother and also a second adult companion animal there,” he tells Emma Johnson of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Mulville kept watching the whales for roughly another hour and a half, during which the mother continued to attend to the calf’s body.