The most heartbreaking loss was a newborn calf that had made global news after its mother, Tahlequah, carried her dead body around for seventeen days. The world’s media speculated whether or not this young mother could be mourning; to Giles it was obvious. ‘I find it insulting that we would assume she wasn’t grieving,’ she told me. ‘These orcas are very much like us, but, quite honestly, I think they are better than us. They’ve got parts of their brains that we don’t even have.’
