A drone has captured a humpback whale giving birth to a calf in waters off Australia\u2019s east coast, in what may be a world first.<\/p>\n
Alexander Forrest, 20, a wildlife photographer, was standing on a coastal point in northern New South Wales to capture the annual whale migration along a stretch of ocean known as the \u201chumpback highway.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr. Forrest said he noticed one \u201cunusually slow\u201d whale swimming along. Sensing something was happening, he flew his drone toward the whale and hit record. <\/p>\n
The footage he captured shows a vivid red plume of blood in the water above the adult whale, before a pale gray calf emerges with a flick of its tail. The calf pokes its head above the water as if to take its first breath. The pair are then seen swimming together in the clear waters.<\/p>\n
Initially, Mr. Forrest thought the blood indicated that a predator had attacked the whale. But soon he realized what he was seeing.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was just amazing. I didn\u2019t know what to think. I was just putting all the pieces together in my mind like, \u2018What have I just witnessed?\u2019\u201d he said. \u201cI knew it was rare.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr. Forrest said he called the Organisation for the Rescue and Research of Cetaceans (ORRCA) to let them know what he had seen and ask them to help monitor the newborn and its mother. <\/p>\n
The video is thought to show the fourth complete humpback whale birth ever recorded on film, and the first ever captured by drone, ORRCA said later in a post on social media.<\/p>\n
While previous footage has captured humpback whale births, none has captured an entire birth, and the moments afterward, from a drone, according to Vanessa Pirotta, a whale scientist at Macquarie University.<\/p>\n
The video will add vital information to the small trove of what scientists know about how the animals give birth, she added.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a secret moment of a whale that\u2019s never been seen like this from the drone,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Each year during the southern hemisphere\u2019s winter months, about 50,000 humpback whales migrate along Australia\u2019s east coast from their southern feeding ground to the warmer northern waters off Queensland \u2014 where they breed and give birth, and then swim back in spring. This 9,941-mile journey is one of the longest migrations<\/a> of any animal. <\/p>\n Beachgoers can often spot the whales as they make their journeys up and down the coast. <\/p>\n The animals are considered one of Australia\u2019s great conservation success stories, said Ms. Pirotta. Humpback whales were hunted almost to the point of extinction 60 years ago.<\/p>\n But in recent decades, and thanks to the efforts of conservationists, their numbers have bounced back.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A drone has captured a humpback whale giving birth to a calf in waters off Australia\u2019s east coast,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":614954,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[273],"tags":[25045,1128,214769,18,32974,19,17,7019,259425,133,447,203021,461],"class_list":["post-614953","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-animal-behavior","tag-australia","tag-drones-pilotless-planes","tag-eire","tag-fish-and-other-marine-life","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-marine-biology","tag-new-south-wales-australia","tag-science","tag-water","tag-whales-and-whaling","tag-wildlife"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117019701910415341","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614953","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=614953"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614953\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/614954"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=614953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=614953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=614953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}