Mating Season

Thu, 09 Jul 2015

By Eco Ranger Ina

Humpback Whale Mating Season

We’re still seeing lots and lots of whales coming through every day, heading north towards their breeding grounds off North Queensland. A lot of the pods we’re seeing at the moment tend to be groups of large adults that are quite active, often moving fast, chasing each other. These are so-called competitive or courtship pods consisting generally of one female being pursued by several male suitors. Today we spent a lot of time with one such group of four big adults.

The behaviour is called a heat run. When a female is ready to mate, she will announce her presence, often by slapping her big pectoral flippers onto the surface or even breaching, signalling to any males in the area that she’s available. As the males approach though, she actually starts swimming away. The males will follow her and as they do, they are competing with each other for the best position, closest to the female. So the males expend a lot of energy, ramming each other, jostling for position, warding off competitors. This can go on for several hours and at the end, only the strongest and fittest of the males will have enough energy left to keep up with the female and remain by her side. This is her way of finding the best possible mate who will presumably father the strongest and fittest calf.

This is always exciting to watch as the whales tend to spend a lot of time jostling around at the surface and often move quite fast. Today they were rolling around, charging and lunging out of the water and ramming each other, literally a few metres off the side of our boat!

Eco Ranger Ina

About the author

Eco Ranger Ina

Eco Ranger Ina was a former Eco Ranger and Whale Watching Commentator from the Tangalooma Marine Education and Conservation Centre.

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