we believe this is the first time that
there’s been any aerial footage of
nursing of a baleen whale and especially
in a blue whale I do believe it’s the
first we are cutting blue whale
population in the South carried by
region of New Zealand and along the west
coast of New Zealand that has been
recently documented we’re trying to get
some baseline information about the
population what they’re doing there and
their behavior we came across a pair
that we could see from the vessel we are
about a hundred meters away that we
could tell by the size difference
between the two animals that one was a
mother and one was a cat a bit of a
guess how old the calf is but we think
the calf is probably about four to six
months old whales and dolphins have to
coordinate breathing with lactation and
what we can see in this video is the
calf is alternating between coming to
the surface to breathe and then going
under its mom for a period suckle the
animals are basically stationary so we
don’t think that this is sort of a
position that would help locomotion once
lactation is done that what’s estimated
to be about five or seven months the
calf is considered weaned and then it
should go off on its own at that point
so these animals are generally solitary
they can aggregate on feeding grounds
seeing this activity this nursing
activity as well as the five mom calf
pairs in this region definitely shows us
that this population is reproducing and
it’s an important area for moms to come
and raise their young
the South Carnegie byte has a fair bit
of industrial activity from oil and gas
development and there’s also vessel
traffic through the area though there
are a number of human uses there that we
just need to be able to manage
appropriately in terms of protection of
these blue whales in their habitat
you
there’s been any aerial footage of
nursing of a baleen whale and especially
in a blue whale I do believe it’s the
first we are cutting blue whale
population in the South carried by
region of New Zealand and along the west
coast of New Zealand that has been
recently documented we’re trying to get
some baseline information about the
population what they’re doing there and
their behavior we came across a pair
that we could see from the vessel we are
about a hundred meters away that we
could tell by the size difference
between the two animals that one was a
mother and one was a cat a bit of a
guess how old the calf is but we think
the calf is probably about four to six
months old whales and dolphins have to
coordinate breathing with lactation and
what we can see in this video is the
calf is alternating between coming to
the surface to breathe and then going
under its mom for a period suckle the
animals are basically stationary so we
don’t think that this is sort of a
position that would help locomotion once
lactation is done that what’s estimated
to be about five or seven months the
calf is considered weaned and then it
should go off on its own at that point
so these animals are generally solitary
they can aggregate on feeding grounds
seeing this activity this nursing
activity as well as the five mom calf
pairs in this region definitely shows us
that this population is reproducing and
it’s an important area for moms to come
and raise their young
the South Carnegie byte has a fair bit
of industrial activity from oil and gas
development and there’s also vessel
traffic through the area though there
are a number of human uses there that we
just need to be able to manage
appropriately in terms of protection of
these blue whales in their habitat
you
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