Some humpback whales are born in warmer waters. Others are born on the way. That’s what a study in Frontiers in Marine Science seems to suggest, anyway, after showing that hundreds of East Australian humpback whales are actually born mid-migration, while their mothers are still traveling to their established calving and breeding grounds.
“Hundreds of humpback calves were born well outside the established breeding grounds,” said Tracey Rogers, the senior study author and a biology professor at the University of New South Wales, according to a press release. “Giving birth along the ‘humpback highway’ means these vulnerable calves, who are not yet strong swimmers, are required to swim long distances much earlier in life than if they were born in the breeding grounds.”
In fact, the study shows that these calves are sometimes born in the temperate waters around Southeastern Australia, New Zealand, and Tasmania, around 900 miles south of ...
