{"id":894586,"date":"2026-09-16T22:26:18","date_gmt":"2026-09-16T22:26:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/894586\/"},"modified":"2026-09-16T22:26:18","modified_gmt":"2026-09-16T22:26:18","slug":"rare-video-of-humpback-whale-with-stillborn-calf-suggests-species-may-experience-form-of-grief","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/894586\/","title":{"rendered":"Rare video of humpback whale with stillborn calf suggests species may experience form of grief"},"content":{"rendered":"

A video of a female humpback whale and its stillborn calf, taken near the Gold Coast, is a rare glimpse into the species’ reaction to death, researchers say.<\/p>\n

The footage, filmed in waters off Palm Beach in July last year, shows a whale interacting with its deceased calf immediately after giving birth.<\/p>\n

The mother approaches the calf several times, touching it with its head and fin, then lies still alongside the newborn’s body.<\/p>\n

The female and another “escort” whale remained with the stillborn for at least two hours.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Researchers say the behaviour has not been observed among humpback whales before. (Supplied: Andrew Mulville)<\/p>\n

Members of the public spotted two adult humpbacks in the same area over the next two days, although it was not confirmed if they were the same animals.<\/p>\n

Dr Olaf Meynecke, a marine scientist at Griffith University’s Whales and Climate Research Program, said the “post-mortem attentive behaviour”, sometimes referred to as grieving behaviour, shown towards the calf had not been seen in humpback whales before.<\/p>\n

Dr Meynecke co-authored a report of the encounter, published in the Discover Animals journal.<\/p>\n

\"Man<\/p>\n

Dr Olaf Meynecke from Griffith University’s Whales and Climate Program. (ABC Gold Coast: Dominic Cansdale)<\/p>\n

“Having the background knowledge of the strong bond between mother and calf, and then witnessing the response of a female towards a stillborn is obviously a very unique way of observing animal behaviour and understanding what the responses might be when a situation like this occurs,” Dr Meynecke said.<\/p>\n

“They were not travelling, they were not socialising, and they were staying in the same spot and milling or turning around in the same area.<\/p>\n

“We are seeing something here that suggests at least a strong attachment to this stillborn and clearly a change of behaviour after this event occurred.”<\/p>\n

SeaWorld Foundation rescue boat captain Andrew Mulville was on a day off fishing with his son when he was asked to check on the whales, which had been reported as acting strangely.<\/p>\n

\"Two<\/p>\n

Dr Olaf Meynecke (left) and rescue captain Andrew Mulville (right) have both been working with whales for more than a decade.\u00a0 (ABC Gold Coast: Julia Andr\u00e9)<\/p>\n

After he realised one of the whales had given birth to a stillborn calf, he decided to film the encounter with an underwater camera.<\/p>\n

Mr Mulville said after 25 years caring for sick whales, seeing strandings and conducting rescues, he had a good understanding of their typical behaviour.<\/p>\n

“That was a huge part of what made me even think to put my head underwater in the first place because it was something I’ve never seen before,” he said.<\/p>\n

“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.”<\/p>\n

Grieving behaviour has been more commonly observed among types of toothed whales and dolphins, including instances of Orca whales carrying dead calves for hours or days at a time.<\/a><\/p>\n

Dr Meynecke said dead humpback calves were much harder to observe, as they are less buoyant and often sink to the bottom of the ocean quickly.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A humpback whale breaches of the Gold Coast. (Supplied: Humpbacks and Highrises)<\/p>\n

He hopes that more people using drones while in the water will make it easier to document similar events in the future.<\/p>\n

“It does help us to understand animals in general much better, also hopefully understand our humpback whales better,” Dr Meynecke said.<\/p>\n

“We can then start thinking about what it means for a whale to actually be entangled in fishing gear or to experience stress, and how long that impact might even last.”<\/p>\n

Macquarie University whale scientist Dr Vanessa Pirotta, who was not involved in the report, said it was “challenging” to interpret the female whale’s behaviour.<\/p>\n

“For a humpback whale to give birth to a calf and it being stillborn, I would say that there would definitely be at least a reflection on potentially what has happened, given that this mother has been carrying this calf,” Dr Pirotta said.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Dr Vanessa Pirotta says it is “challenging” to interpret the female whale’s behaviour in the video. (Supplied)<\/p>\n

She noted that while humans and whales can share similarities as mammals, it was important not to “anthropomorphise” the behaviour.<\/p>\n

“What we can do is we can learn from observations, and that’s exactly what science is about,” Dr Pirotta said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A video of a female humpback whale and its stillborn calf, taken near the Gold Coast, is a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":894587,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[463899,64,63,21699,1300,463898,33252,22938,50446,44853,50196,337,128,18204,338],"class_list":["post-894586","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-andrew-mulville","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-calf","tag-death","tag-grieving-behaviour","tag-humpback-whale","tag-marine-biology","tag-marine-science","tag-mother","tag-olaf-meynecke","tag-research","tag-science","tag-whales","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/894586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=894586"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/894586\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/894587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=894586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=894586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=894586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}