THE HUMPBACKThe Humpback Whale Foundation News

Arabian Sea Humpback

Whale The Arabian Sea humpback whale may be the most isolated humpback population on the planet, keeping its home in the same place for tens of thousands of years. That’s the conclu-sion reached in a new study of the ma-rine mammal conducted by a research team from the Wildlife Conservation Society and the American Museum of Natural History. The whale, currently classified as “Endangered” on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) Red List of threatened species, has proved difficult to study due to a limited amount of data from which to work. But the authors of a study just published in the journal PLOS ONE were able to analyze tissue samples from 67 Arabian Sea humpback whales, focusing on both mitochondrial and nuclear DNA. The team then compared its genet-ic analyses with existing data from humpback whale populations in both the Southern Hemisphere and the North Pacific. They found that the Arabian Sea humpback is highly dis-tinct from the Southern Hemisphere and North Pacific populations. Meanwhile, the team’s analysis of the gene flow of the creature suggest-ed the Arabian Sea humpback origi-nated in the Southern Indian Ocean.

December 1, 2014Editor, Camilla Bryant

Young Humpback catches air in laguna beach In three decades of watching marine mammals in the ocean, Capt. Tom White has never seen a humpback whale as acrobatic as the juve-nile creature that propelled itself out of the water on a recent day. White, who guides charters for Dana Wharf Sportsfishing and Whale Watching in Dana Point, had seen the whale on Nov. 28, cruis-ing along in the water in Laguna Beach. But the next day, the humpback jumped to life - literally. It breached 31 times, to the delight of spectators who had their cameras out, with one lucky photographer catching the whale out of the water, making it look like it was levitating on the ocean surface. “Humpbacks are known for being an acrobatic whale,” White said. “He did that one breach where he got his whole body out of the wa-ter.” In his 37 years as a boat captain, it was a first for White. Humpback whales are not usually in the area this time of year, as they travel to the more tropical waters of Mex-ico or Hawaii to mate. But our local water temperature - which is lingering around 65 degrees - seems to be keeping them around. Usually, water temps are around 59 degrees this time of year. White said there’s also a healthy amount of anchovies in local waters. “I have a feeling the anchovies are keeping them around because there’s still lots of food for them to eat.”

Young humpback swimming with it’s mother