Dolphin Mother Expresses Grief By Carrying its Dead Calf on Back: Video

Most of us always wonder whether animals have emotions or not. Whale watchers aboard Captain Dave's Dolphin and Whale Watching Safari definitely have an answer to this. People on the safari witnessed a heart-breaking scene of  a dolphin carrying her dead baby calf on her back off the shores of Dana Point, California.

One of the boaters described the scene that occurred on March 26, Tuesday, as a dolphin funeral procession. The video here shows the deceased calf being carried by an adult bottlenose dolphin on its back.

"I believe this calf has been dead for many days, possibly weeks," boat captain Dave Anderson of the boat watching safari said in a press statement. He added that the flesh was decaying and it was the first time in his 20 years of experiences he had witnessed such behaviour.

The bottlenose dolphin was surrounded by a pod of dolphins forming a protective circle around them.

According to Pete Thomas Outdoors, Cetaceans are known to carry their dead calf on their back and it is a sign of mourning but this event is rarely seen.

One of the passengers aboard the safari vessel said, "The last thing I expected to see today was a funeral procession and it was a pretty profound statement about the emotions that those animals feel and how much alike we are."