April is a transition month from looking inshore for the seasonal humpback whales that have begun migrating back to their summer feeding grounds to looking offshore for the resident whales that stay in Hawaiian waters year ‘round.

That being said, mid-April has been fortuitous for finding late season humpback mothers and calves.  The youngsters need to do a fair bit of nursing before they have the strength and the blubber insulation for the long journey northward.   Newborns will stay on the breeding grounds with their mothers at least a couple of months before they make the 3,000 mile swim toward the cold water of Southeast Alaska where mothers will resume their feeding after nearly four months of fasting.  You might imagine the strain 100 gallons of milk a day to feed the calf poses on a humpback mother who isn’t eating.  How well the calf does is often dependent on how well the mother did on the feeding grounds the prior summer.  The youngsters born in Hawaii this winter will return to Hawaii next fall with their mothers and will stay with their mothers 12 – 18 months before they are taught to take to food on their own and are weaned. 

This time of year we generally spend the first half of the tour searching offshore for pilot whales, beaked whales, sperm whales, and others and then on the latter part of the tour turn our attention towards the shoreline looking for late season humpback mother and calf pairs and also looking for the entertaining spinner and bottlenose dolphins that frequent the shallow water during the daylight hours.

Aloha,

Captain Dan

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 16th, 2009 at 10:57 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.