It’s Whale time in South Africa
The Southern Right Whale is South Africa’s headline whale species and the reason Hermanus, SA exists as a global whale watching destination. Every year between June and December, thousands of these enormous baleen whales migrate north from Antarctic feeding grounds to mate, calve and nurse in the sheltered bays of the South African coast. Adult Southern Right Whales reach 70 feet long and weigh up to 80 tons — roughly the weight of 12 African elephants. They have stocky black bodies, no dorsal fin, but broad pectoral flippers and a wide V-shaped blow when they surface. The most distinctive feature is the pattern of callosities on the head — roughened patches of skin colonized by whale lice that appear white or yellow against the black skin. The callosity creates a unique pattern for each individual and is used by researchers as a kind of fingerprint to identify and track returning whales year after year.
The excitement whale watchers come to see in boats or even from the shoreline include:
Sailing: Southern Rights are famous for raising their tail flukes above the water and letting the wind push them along like a sail boat— apparently for play.
Breaching: 60-tonne whales launching their entire bodies clear of the water — one of the great wildlife spectacles on earth. Getting oohs and aahs from the crowds watching.
Lobtailing: slapping the tail flukes on the water surface, like in the commercials, possibly as communication.
Spyhopping: raising the head vertically out of the water to look around.
Calving and nursing: mothers give birth in shallow, sheltered bays. Newborns stay within meters of their mother for months. The birth and the infancy can be watched from the shore.
Southern Right Whales spend summer (December–April) feeding on copepods and krill in the cold, productive waters of the Southern Ocean near Antarctica. As autumn arrives they migrate north — pregnant females first, then other adults — to the coastal bays of South Africa,. The South African population favors the stretch of coast between False Bay and Plettenberg Bay, with Walker Bay (Hermanus) and De Hoop Marine Protected Area holding the highest concentrations. By December most have gone back South to Antarctica. Commercial whaling reduced the global Southern Right Whale population to a few hundred animals by 1935 when full international protection was granted. The South African population has recovered to an estimated 6,000 animals and grows by roughly 7% per year. The species is no longer critically endangered in South African waters.
Whale whoppers
Some lions just escaped a nature reserve in South Africa.
They were rejected from their group.
They could maybe ask to be let in the group again,
But their pride wouldn’t let them.
It’s strange how African superheroes have the same origin story.
They’re all from Cape Town.
What do you call a whale with bad posture?
A hunchback whale.
What’s a killer whale’s favorite pasta?
Penguini.
October 8th Birthdays
1968 – Emily Procter, 1988 – Bella Thome, 1994 – Molly Quinn, 1950 – Sigourney Weaver
1970 – Matt Damon, 1988 – Nick Cannon, 1987 – Bruno Mars, 1939 – Paul Hogan