Passengers on a whale watching tour off the coast of California were treated to a “once-in-a- lifetime” experience after they witnessed a gray whale giving birth to a calf, incredible footage shows.
The memorable moment was seen by those aboard a ship from Captain Dave’s Dana Point Dolphin & Whale Watching Safari after the group approached what initially seemed to be a migrating whale in distress, writhing within the water near the surface off Dana Point in Orange County, based on a Youtube post from the corporate.
Passengers and crew members spotted something orange and blue within the water they initially mistook for kelp or something more sinister. Once they got closer, a calf got here to the surface.
“For a minute, a lot of us thought it could be a shark or predatory event. But no, as a substitute of the tip of life, it was the start of a latest one,” the corporate wrote within the post.
Video shows the mother, or “cow,” swimming within the water with the calf, spinning around as she seems to indicate off her latest baby to the gawking whale watchers. The 2 may be seen bumping into one another because the newborn learns to swim.
The corporate said that the grey whales typically give birth in the nice and cozy, secure lagoons of Baja California, but sometimes calves are born in the course of the 10,000 to 12,000 mile migration from their feeding grounds in Alaska.
Calves are already about 15-feet long after they are born and can gain as much as 50 kilos a day while nursing from their moms’ milk, causing the mother to lose as much as 30% of her body weight in fat, based on the post.
Gray whales will grow to achieve 40 to 50-feet long and weigh between 30 and 40 tons.