The Discover Animals paper describes rare July 2025 GoPro footage from Palm Beach Reef showing a humpback mother repeatedly attending a stillborn calf off Australia’s Gold Coast. The mother dove to the seafloor, rested beside the lifeless newborn and placed a pectoral fin over it, but did not attempt to lift it—possibly indicating recognition that the calf was unresponsive. Authors say the sustained post-mortem attention resembles grief-related responses seen in other socially complex mammals and is exceptionally rare to document in humpbacks.
Rare Footage Shows Humpback Mother Appearing To Grieve Stillborn Calf Off Australia’s Gold Coast
Stock photo of a humpback whaleCredit: Getty
Researchers have released exceptionally rare underwater footage showing a female humpback whale remaining close to and interacting with her stillborn calf off Australia’s Gold Coast. The video, recorded in July 2025 at Palm Beach Reef with a GoPro, was described in a paper published in the journal Discover Animals on Sept. 16.
Co-authors Andrew Mulville, a SeaWorld Foundation rescue boat captain, and Dr. Olaf Meynecke of Griffith University’s Whales and Climate Research Program report that the mother stayed near the lifeless newborn for hours and possibly days, repeatedly diving to the seafloor, resting beside the calf and making sustained contact.
Observed behaviors included: repeated short dives to the calf, resting next to it on the seafloor for about a minute at a time, moving her pectoral fin over the calf and appearing to make prolonged visual attention toward the newborn. Notably, the mother did not attempt to lift the calf to the surface, which the authors say may indicate recognition that the calf was unresponsive.
Newborn humpback calves lack the body fat required to float unaided and will sink without help from an adult, a biological detail that may explain why adults sometimes attempt to support or move neonates. The authors characterize the observed pattern as "post-mortem attentive behavior" and note that it resembles grief-related responses reported in other socially complex mammals.
Stock image of a humpback whale swimmingCredit: Getty
"She was repeatedly diving down for short times and swimming next to the calf, then resting next to it on the floor for about a minute, even moving the pectoral fin over the calf, then diving up again," Meynecke told Live Science.
The footage was recorded after Mulville — who had gone out fishing on his day off — was asked to check on whales reportedly behaving unusually in the area. Witnessing a humpback birth is exceptionally uncommon: Meynecke told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that only about 20 humpback births have been documented in the scientific literature, and none previously involved a stillborn calf.
Researchers say the record is important both scientifically and emotionally. While attentive post-mortem behaviors have been documented in terrestrial mammals such as elephants and chimpanzees and in some other cetaceans (for example, orcas observed carrying dead calves), such documentation for humpback whales has been extremely rare.
Implications: The observation provides a rare window into potential social and emotional complexity in humpbacks and underscores the difficulty of documenting post-birth and post-mortem behaviors at sea. The authors emphasize that while their descriptions are consistent with grief-related responses, interpreting animal emotions from behavior requires caution and further study.
Sources and Context: The account and video were detailed in Discover Animals on Sept. 16 and reported by outlets including Live Science, CBS News and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Co-authors include Andrew Mulville and Dr. Olaf Meynecke.
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