378 WHALES 



were pushed up by their mothers, probably because, without air in their 

 lungs, calves tend to sink to the bottom. (In Chapter 6, we saw that 

 Cetacean mothers also push up their still-born calves.) Moreover, the 

 mother would often be supported in this and subsequent tasks by another 

 cow, and the two adults would often keep away from the rest of the herd, 

 shepherding the young calf between them. Such 'aunts' occur in other 

 mammals also, particularly in elephants, and also in hippopotami, in 

 which the mother entrusts her young to another female while she herself 

 goes in search of food. In the Marineland Aquarium, a mother Boltlenose 

 was even observed being assisted by two 'aunts', while on another 

 occasion all the cows in the tank took turns pushing a dead calf to the 

 surface for four hours. 



Maternal ties are particularly close in Cetaceans, whose young always 

 keep extremely close to the mother and often swim just behind her dorsal 

 fins or beneath one of her pectoral fins. This method of swimming was 

 observed both in Bottlenoses, and also in Humpbacks whose behaviour 

 the Australian biologist R. G. Chittleborough and his colleagues managed 

 to photograph from a helicopter. In the feeding grounds, however, young 

 Cetaceans may swim far away from their mothers. Young Humpbacks also 

 seem to have an 'aunt', and in Bottlenoses the 'aunt' is often the only cow 

 which the mother allows near her calf, interposing her own body between 

 the calf and any other curious interloper, just as many other animals 

 can be seen doing in the Zoo. The Cetacean mother may keep in almost 

 constant touch with her calf by sounds, and, whenever she dozes off', the 

 calf may sleep under her tail. 



When attacked, the Cetacean mother will immediately come to her 

 calf's assistance, and formerly a great many whalers lost their boats and 

 even their lives after they had killed or wounded a calf. There are many 

 reports of the mother and calf not abandoning each other even after one 

 of them has been killed. Long ago, whalers often took advantage of this 

 fact but, nowadays, even if there were no express prohibition, gunners 

 would consider it beneath their dignity to shoot at a calf or at the mother 

 accompanying it. 



Two weeks after they are born, young Bottlenoses in Marineland usually 

 make their first attempt to leave their mother's or their aunt's side and 

 to swim round the tank on their own, and even to chase after fish. Of 

 course, the fish get away, since the calves have hardly cut their teeth and 

 are, in any case, not yet weaned. Only when they are five or seven 

 months old do many of the calves begin to accept pieces of squid and 

 later to swallow fish, but they continue to be suckled, all the same, until 

 they are from twelve to twenty months old, while others keep to an 

 exclusive diet of milk throughout that time. Weaning is often accompanied 



