Southern Right Whale

We had seen the amazing orcas but then we were heading off to the bigger Southern Right Whales!!!!!!   When we got there we were surprised that the office was a boat!  We put our life jackets on and hopped in the real whale-watching boat and sailed away.  About 2 minutes after we got in the water we saw about 7 bottlenose dolphins, they looked like they were performing a show for us.  About 10 minutes later, we saw our first southern right whale.  We didn’t think we would see one of these huge creatures, because  its the end of the season, so we were stunned. The one we saw was a mother and about 15 metres long. The water was so clear you could see the whole body under the water. At the end it flapped its tail up gradually and we got some brilliant pictures.  

Shiny whale tail

The whales were right beside our boat

Then from out of nowhere we saw another 4 southern right whales including the first baby southern right whale with the first mum.   They were black with little white humpy things on their head. They move by flapping their tail under water very slowly. At the end the two baby whales were lying on their mums backs. They don’t seem to go very fast at all. It made me feel excited, amazed and proud to watch them. 

Baby whales on their Mums' backs!

Facts

1. The tail weighs a tonne.  
2. They are born with the grey humpy calluses on their head. The lice are white and hop on their back and make the calluses look white.
3. In Argentina, there are a lot of seagulls.  They peck the southern right whales' backs because they like the skin.  The whales lose a lot of energy trying to escape from the seagulls, and some of them die.
4. The mother is bigger than the father whale because she has to feed the babies. The babies drink 150 litres of milk a day from their mum.   The dad gets to about 14m long but the mum can get to about 16m long.
5. They can live up to about 70 or 80 years old.

BY FRANKIE