What Tahlequah Can Teach Us About Perinatal Loss
Written by Elizabeth Moore Simpson
Tahlequah (J35), a Southern Resident Killer Whale (SRKW) who became locally and perhaps internationally famous in 2018 when she publicly mourned her deceased calf, is in the tragic position of experiencing another perinatal loss. Following the death of her previous calf, she gained notoriety for her “Tour of Grief”- carrying the calf for 17 days and over 1,000 miles. In the final days of 2024, she gave birth to J61 who was confirmed deceased on the 1st of the year, leading her to renew her tour across the Puget Sound.
Tahlequah now finds herself in the position of many parents who have suffered the loss of a child, having both living offspring as well as an unimaginable burden of grief. Her loss is palpable and akin to that of other ‘loss parents’, as she makes visible an often invisible experience by literally carrying her grief and her calf for the last two weeks. Perinatal loss encompasses miscarriage, stillbirth and infant death and impacts a sizable, but hidden part of the population.
For our SRKWs, in recent years, the miscarriage rates have been as high as 69% depending on the access to Chinook Salmon, which, along with vessel noise and pollution, puts them at a very high extinction risk. On land, the miscarriage rate for humans is about 15% and roughly 5% of those experiencing a miscarriage will have another in a subsequent pregnancy. In 2022 4.3% of births resulted in infant death in Washington. These perinatal losses, whether infant death, stillborn, or neonatal, are often hidden and stigmatized in our communities, forcing parents to mourn privately. In the case of miscarriage, stigma can be so isolating that families are often grieving a baby that the world might not have known existed. The term we use for this is “disenfranchised grief” – a grief that is unacknowledged or invisibilized.
Washington State Paid Family and Medical Leave allows seven days of paid leave to qualifying employees who experience a perinatal death or miscarriage, and three days for other bereavement. In holding Tahlequah’s first and now second “Tour of Grief” spanning more than two weeks, it’s hard to imagine anyone experiencing a loss, human or not, being able to compartmentalize their bereavement in this amount of time.
Tahlequah’s pod is touted for being matriarchal and they are known for being social mammals as they gestate for 15-18 months, nurse for two or more years, and care for and provide food for their adolescent and grown offspring well into adulthood. Scientists claim that this continued parenting can hinder their ability to procreate further and this prolonged period of parenting and intimate nature of caregiving speaks to the gravity of Tahlequah’s sadness.
Deborah Giles of Wild Orca shared with the Seattle Times, “Every time the calf slides off her head, Tahlequah has to make the decision to dive down and pick it up again before the waves carry the calf away. Though the calf weighs hundreds of pounds, it is not the physical effort so much Giles worries about for such a strong animal, but the toll it takes on J35 because she can’t forage when she’s carrying the calf, Giles said. She also worries about the orca’s mental health.”
In the discourse surrounding Tahlequah’s story, there is a line being drawn around the anthropomorphization of her loss. While some may claim that projecting our human attributes and constructs around grief on Tahlequah might be unnecessary at best and harmful at worst, I disagree. I think we can all learn from Tahlequah about the primal instinct to be witnessed in our grief and to have ways to express it. Tahlequah is inviting her pod, the ocean, and the world at large to bear witness to her grief, illuminating a need for visibility, support, and compassion for the losses experienced by humans and orcas alike.
Shortly after Tahlequah’s calf passed, online whale tracking forums began memorializing her. Online netizens shared awareness about the new 1,000 foot vessel buffer used to protect the whales that came into effect on January 1st, 2025. There was an intertribal gathering to memorialize her as many Washington tribes have strong ties to their aquatic relatives and have been working for decades to protect and restore their habitat. These mourning rituals offer us a glimmer of inspiration for ways in which we are relating to each other in grief by providing visibility and solace, reducing isolation, and shining a light in the dark.
As we move into the new year, we face an uphill battle to provide support for families of all kinds. I hope that we can partner together and find ways, big and small, to bear witness to the grief of parents who have experienced any kind of loss.
For over 30 years Perinatal Support Washington (PS-WA) has strived to do this by increasing access, support, and visibility for perinatal mental health, including perinatal loss resources across Washington. In 2024, PS-WA absorbed Parent Support of Puget Sound (PS), a local non-profit focused on peer support for perinatal loss. In 2025, we will continue to offer training focused on grief and loss for mental health and medical providers, consultation, therapy, and peer support for parents.
For parents and professionals seeking support around perinatal mental health and loss, please know there are resources, and we will be your witnesses.
Our loss support group calendar and resources can be found here: perinatalsupport.org/perinatal-loss-resources
Our Warm Line is available at: 1-888-404-7763