Southern Right Whales at Woody Cape
By Lloyd Edwards

1. News

Do you know why we call them “Southern Right Whales”?

“Southern” of course because they live in the South Hemisphere . . . but “Right”?!

It was because they were the right specie to hunt!

The reason is because they swim close to the shore and very slowly, their body contains 40% oil, and thanks to the big blubber layer, once killed by harpoons, they floated on the surface.

Can you believe it?! Now they are the right whales to observe because of this behaviour and also because they spend plenty of time on the surface and are not scared of boats, if approached in the prescribed manner.

The reason cow calf pairs stay so close to the shore and “whisper” to each other, is to avoid detection by killer whales. The breaking waves also help to make this communication less audible.

Like I will never understand war, I will never understand how it’s possible that the human being almost drove such a wonderful, magnificent and charismatic species like the Southern Right Whale to extinction.

But at least we stopped in time. Other species were not so lucky, like the African White Rhinoceros, the Blue Antelope or the Quagga, a South African cousin of the zebra. Unfortunately, we have a long list of other examples of extinction species around the World.

At the beginning of the 20th century, mankind realized there weren’t many whales left; we had killed around 38 000 Southern Rights in the South Atlantic. So, in 1935, a moratorium was introduced which stopped their slaughter. Other species were not so lucky. The population of Southern Right in those years was about 300 individuals. Today we estimate a population of about 10 000, but they are still listed by CITES as endangered.

Unlike the Humpback Whale which has already reached pre-exploitation numbers, the Southern Right Whale is still in a slow recovery. The reason for this is related to the effect of our behaviour (of course!); the entanglement in fishing gear, boat strikes, habitat degradation with the industrialization of coast, the noise of the oceans and last but not least, climate change. In fact, due to the climate change, the temperature of Antarctic water is rising (2.7°C since 1970). The consequence is that the ice is melting, and this can be a problem for phytoplankton growing under the ice. And of course, this will have an impact on zooplankton and therefore whales. So, the Southern Right Whale population can tell us a lot about the environmental conditions on a large-scale.

I feel so lucky to have seen them, and luckier to live in Algoa Bay, where I have the chance to observe them and their calves on the way back to the Antarctic for the summer feeding season. They are normally gone by the end of September, but the ones we observed must have been late breeders. Ideally the calf should be around 8 metres long to be fit enough for the long journey back to the feeding grounds.

Taken with a Nikon Z9 mirrowless, ISO 1400, f/13, 70mm zoom on a 70 to 200 2.8 mirrowless lens and 1/1250th second. The calf always keeps close to it's mothers side.

Note the callosities on the calf. These warty protuberances quickly get covered with all kinds of travelling organisms, most notably whale lice and barnacles.

The f/13 aperture ensure that the beautiful Woody Cape is nice and sharp. Southern Right whales have a characteristic V shape blow when observed front the front or rear.

We have observed up to 30 cow calf pairs on this desolate section of coast. We used to have plenty of them around the area where the new port at Coega has been constructed. The nose of the ships coming and going as well as the bunkering has made them seek out these quieter waters.