Early start to Humpback Migration
By Lloyd Edwards

We have been keeping meticulous records of the Humpback migration for the last 23 years, which is how long Raggy Charters has been around. During the first 18 years, humpbacks came past Cape Recife regularly like clockwork at the beginning of June each year on their Northerly migration to East Africa. On their Southern migration the last of them rounded Cape Recife by the second week in January.

 

During the last four years the Northern migration still passed Algoa Bay at the beginning of June but the Southern migration came flying past earlier each year and last year no animals were sighted after the end of November. Could this be a result of climate change and global warming or is this just a natural cycle? What do you think?

 

Now this year we have had some stragglers coming into Algoa Bay in April, which is really unusual. We have also had super pods staying through summer on our West coast, feeding on krill. This year we have had ten sub adults staying for the last week in Algoa Bay, tucked away in North End. This also happens to coincide with 3 killer whale sightings, the week prior to this. It seems like these juvenile humpbacks feel a lot safer in the shallow water. As per the photos, one can be seen tail slapping, which is a method used to deter predation by killer whales. Remember that from November 2019 to March 2020 we had two juvenile humpbacks hiding out at the new Port of Coega, which had definite killer whale teeth marks present on their backs and tail flukes.

Have a look at the scars on the whale in photo # 4; really not sure what could have caused these, any ideas? In photo # 5, pieces of the dorsal fin are missing, which often indicated a killer whale attack. After killing the whale by drowning it, only the tongue is consumed.

 

Humpback whale tail slapping in front of the Transnet Building, North End, Algoa Bay.

 

Humpback in front of the Campanile which commemorates the landing of the 1820 British Settlers.

The pattern on the tail flukes varies on each animal, which allows us to identify them.

 

The original Port Elizabeth lighthouse on the Donkin Reserve can be seen at the back left.

This is where I took my first steps back in 1960! Who would have thought that 60 years later I would have taken this photo?!

 

Check out these weird scars on the back of a humpback whale just off North End, Algoa Bay.

Killer whale scars caused by their teeth are much more regularly spaced. Any ideas on what caused these?