A group of tourists had a lucky moment of experiencing a rare moment when they got the privilege to witness a 35-foot-long gray whale giving birth extreme closely.
According to a Metro report, the tour group that came for whale-watching was sailing with Captain Dave’s Dolphin & Whale Safari in Dana Point, California. The sailors say they watch almost a thousand whales every year during their migratory period which lasts from December to May.
The birth of the baby whale was witnessed by the tourists unexpectedly. Initially it appeared to be a normal sighting of a migrating gray whale. But after the boat got closer to the whale the group witnessed an extraordinary view . There was also a difference in the behaviour of the whale . Within seconds, a whale baby emerged through the bloody water and swam happily around her. The rare scene occurred just a few metres away from the boat of the tourists group .It was also a first time experience for the captain and his team who said it loud on the loudspeaker, “This is a first for all of us,’ ‘We’ve never seen this actually happen,” he continued.
The co-president of the safari company told Metro.co.uk, “We’ve seen babies shortly after they were born, we’ve seen baby dolphins that were less than an hour old. But this is a first.”
A video of this rare sighting was posted by the safari service on their YouTube channel. In the video, the mother whale can be seen pushing her newborn to the surface.
While sharing the video, Capt Dave’s Dana Point Dolphin & Whale Watching Safari, wrote, “As the boat slowly approached the animal, our crew noticed it was behaving sporadically. Passengers and crew saw something orange and red colored in the water that they thought might have been kelp.”
“Instead, a newborn calf came up to the surface! For a minute, many of us thought it may be a shark or predatory event. But no, instead of the end of life, it was the beginning of a new one! After surfacing, the newborn calf began learning how to swim and bonding with its mother. The female even brought the calf over to the boats as if to show off her offspring and say hello,” it added.
According to the safari, the gray whales prefer to give birth in the warm and protected lagoons of Baja California, Mexico. However, this particular whale calf appears to have been born before its mother could reach the warmer waters during her annual migration. Gray whales migrate annually along the west coast, swimming 10,000 to 12,000 miles round-trip between the seas off Alaska and Baja California.
