17 March 2021
17
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The right whale to watch and protect By Jax Bath
being used by whales to locate each other. This is particularly true when a naughty calf has wondered off on its own, only to find that their other is nowhere to be seen. It’s always special to watch as the mother manages to find and reunite with her little one.
whale into the oceanic world.
T
his week’s ocean story is a deeper dive into Walker Bay’s favourite seasonal celebrity, the Southern Right Whale. These charismatic creatures make their way from Sub Antarctic regions in the winter months, gracing our shores between June and December, although the occasional straggler can be found earlier on in the year. These whales are hard to confuse with any other whale in our waters. Their skin is for the most part all black and where most whales have a dorsal fin, you will find none on the back of a Southern Right Whale. Perhaps most distinctive are the rough white patches on their heads. These patches have by some been known as rock gardens, but the real name for the patches are callosities. Like the callus that forms on our hands, the callosity is a rough, thick patch of skin. The whales are born with it and after birth, these patches will become covered in cyamids (or whale lice), which have travelled from mother whale onto the baby. After some time, barnacles will also attach to the face, giving the callosity its chalky white coloration. Each whale is born with a unique pattern of these rough patches which science uses to identify the whales as individuals. Not only is their appearance unique from the other whale species of the area but their blow is also somewhat unusual, as their two blowholes open up to form a V-shape blow as they exhale.
These blows can often be seen from shore, with the whales making their way into exceptionally shallow waters in our area! Sometimes on the whale watching vessels, we see them in only around 4m of water, with the whales hanging out so close to shore that the boats aren’t able to make their way into the surf. Luckily for us, however, many Southern Right Whales are curious by nature and will often take it upon themselves to come in for a closer inspection of our vessel. In past years, there have been whales in the shallows who have clocked the boat from a few hundred metres away and then proceeded to breach towards us through the swell, before eventually settling in to have a look at us.
Like all mammals, whales love their babies and when they’re small, prefer not to be too far away. Once from the rocks of De Kelders, I watched as a baby frolicked in a shallow channel a little too precarious for mother to want to navigate. As baby played, mom swam up and down in the deepest stretch she could find, making her impatience clear as she pushed herself through the water in the hopes of grabbing her baby’s attention. For over 40 minutes baby continued to ignore her, as her movements became more pronounced, before finally rejoining the cow. At this age and with these sorts of behaviors, I always compare the little ones to our boundary-pushing human toddlers.
For centuries, humans have been privy to the movements of these large whales. Today it is for us to whale watch them and gain a deeper understanding of their secret lives. Up until about the last century, however, this was because these whales were seen as a commodity or fish stock to be exploited. We once used whale oil to light up our cities, which seems unbelievable these days now that humans have gained a greater appreciation of these sentient beings that grace our shores. Whales are however not out of the woods just yet, with climate change, ship strikes, rope entanglement and increased underwater noise pollution impacting their daily lives. Despite this, great research is being done to help us better understand these threats and mitigate them. What was once the right whale to hunt has now become the right whale to watch and protect, an ongoing conservation story for the ages.
The calves are born in our waters and are fattened up here before the long migration back down south. Whale milk is extremely rich in fat, helping the babies to grow up to 3cm in a single day. They spend the first few months of life drinking, learning the ropes of being a baby whale and occasionally working on their mother’s nerves. When they’re very small, much like us, they’re not very active and are very dependent on mom but as they grow, they begin to learn to breach and use flippers and tail fins, creating one of the finest wildlife-watching spectacles off the South African coastline.
They sometimes circle boats, popping up at various intervals to the delight of all on board. Their eyesight is not their primary sense, but when they’re as close as this they’re definitely checking us out, though their excellent underwater hearing is most likely what alerted them to our presence in the first place.
Once they are big enough, mother whale will lead them to the feeding grounds where they will eventually part ways after about a year together. They will learn to feed on krill and copepods, opening their mouths wide to trap these tiny creatures in the baleen in their mouths. Baleen is the system with which they feed, with over 100 cartilage plates in their mouth forming a hairy-looking sieve that allows these gentle giants to feed on small, nutrient-rich prey.
Sound travels much faster under the water than it does above it, and whales have learned to use this to their advantage. When the whales breach, they use the force of 60 tons to create a right old racket under the water, and we sometimes see this
Mother whale is also feeding as much as she can, after living off her own body fat during her time in our waters. Baleen whales have chosen this incredible life of feast and famine, and after some years, mother whale will do it all again to bring another
Until next week!
