Grieving mother orca still swimming with her dead calf, 16 days later

An endangered mother orca is still clinging to her dead calf more than two weeks after her newborn died.

Tahlequah, the mother orca also known as J35, was spotted on Wednesday afternoon, still carrying her dead calf, 16 days after the newborn died.

Michael Milstein, a spokesman with the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Fisheries division, says researchers on Wednesday spotted the 20-year-old whale carrying her dead young off the tip of Washington's Olympic Peninsula.

Tahlequah, the mother orca also known as J35, was spotted Wednesday afternoon, still carrying her dead infant calf for the 16th straight day. Photo / AP

The calf died on July 24 and the image of the mother whale clinging to the dead calf has struck an emotional chord worldwide.

Milstein says researchers with Fisheries and Ocean Canada also spotted another member of the same pod — the 3 ½-year-old whale J50 that is emaciated. The ailing orca was swimming with her mum on Wednesday.

A team of experts led by NOAA Fisheries have been searching for the young whale to assess her health and potentially give her medication.

"I am absolutely shocked and heartbroken,'' said Deborah Giles, research scientist for University of Washington Center for Conservation Biology and research director for nonprofit Wild Orca, quoted by The Seattle Times.

"I am sobbing. I can't believe she is still carrying her calf around. I am gravely concerned for the health and mental wellbeing of J35.

"Even if her family is foraging for and sharing fish with her, J35 cannot be getting the nutrition she needs to regain any body-mass loss that would have naturally occurred during the gestation of her foetus and also additional loss of nutrition during these weeks of mourning," she added.

The calf was the first in three years to be born to the dwindling population of endangered southern resident killer whales, with only 75 members. The crisis with J35 comes even as another member of J pod, J50, appears to be starving to death as the chinook salmon the animals depend on rapidly decline.

- With AP