Fremantle Whale season will complete this weekend for Season 2024 and today we enjoyed spending time with some of the last pods moving past. What a stunning November morning with a slight easterly breeze and calm seas. It didn’t take long until we sighted bit breaching up on the horizon by mum and calf so we headed her way. After we arrived mum was a lot more relaxed and so was baby this could mean that a small shark could’ve unsettled things causing mamma to be surface active in defence. Sure enough as we sat and waited for the next surfacing a small what looked to be bronze whaler shark came up from hiding and approached our vessel, with mum and calf only about thirty meters away the mum seemed very relaxed for now and I think the little shark learnt its lesson before not to get too close. The young calf also had a small shark bite injury ti his lower peduncle which was healed quite well so would have happened when he was first born by the looks or a few weeks old which explains why mum was so jumpy earlier on with the small shark around. Sitting with mum and calf watching her care and watch over her little one was absolutely beautiful and we are so grateful to spent this sort of time with our whales so close as well.
It won’t be long until we will be saying goodbye to humpbacks for another year so each moment spent with them now is one we really enjoy. Smiles all round this afternoon as we spent our time with a beautiful mum and calf that was very curious towards us. As we saw mum come up for a breath we notice some scarring on her back, with some further close up pics we could see she had seagull scarring. This is something that happens up north while then mums are resting and logging of the surface the cheeky seagulls will land on mum’s back and peck at her, its definitely not ideal as this can lead to infections that can cause troubles for the whales but from the mothers we have seen throughout the season it seems to be healing up which is good. Kate Sprogis one of our research pod members has been studying this seagull behaviour and we will send through some photos to her to keep her up to date with our research abroad as well, we have the privilege to work with our whales everyday so to keep an eye out for this sort of behaviour or any other different behaviours with our whales is always good to keep track on whats happening with our population of Western Australia.
