A grieving dolphin has been spotted carrying its dead calf off the New Zealand coastline.
The bottlenose dolphin was seen at the Bay of Islands on the east coast on Tuesday and was pictured carrying her dead calf alongside another dolphin.
The Department of Conservation warned residents to give the dolphin “space and time” to grieve the death of her young, suspecting it to be stillborn.
Source: Department of ConservationThe department’s Dr Catherine Peters said people should avoid dolphins in the area during this period.
“This female needs everyone on the water to give her the extra space and respect she needs whilst she copes with her loss,” she said.
The mother has dropped the calf “frequently” while swimming with a group which has separated from her at times, leaving the mammal vulnerable.
Pictures of the grieving mother were shared by the department on Twitter with many left heartbroken.
In July last year, a grieving mother killer whale was spotted pushing her dead calf around waters in Canada for a week.
Scientists were concerned the whale was starving herself. After travelling 1600 kilometres in 17 days she finally let the calf go.
Meanwhile dogs are considered as intelligent as the average two-year-old child, according to research by animal psychologists.
Researchers have found that dogs are capable of understanding up to 250 words and gestures, can count up to five and can perform simple mathematical calculations.
According to research, cows are also generally quite intelligent animals who can remember things for a long time.
Animal behaviorists have found that they interact in socially complex ways, developing friendships over time and sometimes holding grudges against other cows who treat them badly.
And new research even reveals that sheep are far more intelligent than they have been given credit for. Scientists at the University of Cambridge have found that the creatures have the brainpower to equal rodents, monkeys and, in some tests, even humans.
At the Wellthisiswhatithink household we used to have a lorikeet who roamed the home, and would walk up to the front door when the family car was about a kilometre away, and wait for it to arrive in the driveway. How did it know?
You tell us.
But we think we need to think much harder about how we interact with animals, that’s for sure.
Well, This Is What I Think 
I’ve long felt that our default, as it were, assumption about animals ought to be that they feel as we would feel in similar circumstances. The word “anthromorphism” has done enough harm to animals and humans both, ans we need to let it go.
And, while we’re on the subject, we also need to do something about humans who, when a fellow human loses a family member which happens not to also be a human, tell that person to quit acting so silly, it’s only a [dog, cat, bird, you fill it in – whatever.) If they think it, then they think it, and that’s their loss, but when they say it to vulnerable people, that is the worst, most contemptible kind of cruelty. If that sounds angry, it’s because it is. I am angry right now for a friend whose dog, the sog whose arrival in his life literally prevented his suicide, got loose and has not been seen for two weeks. He also has financial and medical issues, and he doesn’t need people telling him to snap out of it. I admit to feeling anger.
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I would also feel anger in those circumstances. A little righteous anger is sometimes justified. I am sure you will be a great support to your friend.
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Animals grieve, they form emotional attachments to other animals ..and to humans and they communicate in their fashion to those close to them.They have “mood”, get bored, irritable or afraid. They suffer. Those who deny such things are unempathetic or unobservant and/or wish to somehow assert that other animals are so very different from humans (though they have all evolved from common ancestry) that their differences makes them more like furniture in a homocentric universe…
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Thank you Mary 🙂 I think we should all think much harder about the implications of what you say.
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