The right whale 's baleen, left, allows it to 

 filter copepods and krillfrom the sea. 

 Here the whale is probably not feeding 

 but skimming along the surface to cool off 

 in the warm winter waters. 



James D. Watt; Planet Earttl Pictures 



nized individuals. We can now identify 

 more than 1,200 individuals. Some we 

 have seen hundreds of times; others we 

 have never seen again because they were 

 either passing through or have subse- 

 quently died. 



Nothing is more exciting than seeing 

 the first whales arrive at Peninsula Valdes 

 for the winter. Each year these whales 

 make the long migration from the cold, 

 subpolar waters of Antarctica to winter in 

 Patagonia's warmer waters. Their enor- 

 mous size and thick blubber are adapta- 

 tions enabling them to keep warm enough 

 and swim far enough to gain access to the 

 most enormous blooms of food on the 

 planet — the annual swarms of krill in the 

 icy Antarctic Ocean — as well as to return 

 to their warmer wintering grounds to mate 

 and give birth to young. 



The pregnant females in our Argentine 



population probably make the 1 ,400-mile 

 swim without eating. They linger in the 

 bays of Peninsula Valdes for up to four 

 months, during which time they give birth 

 to a calf Although a mother may get an 

 occasional snack, she is basically fasting. 

 (Normally, right whales catch their prey 

 by skim feeding; we've recently discov- 

 ered, however, that the whales of Penin- 

 sula Valdes are not feeding when they 

 swim along with their mouths open but are 

 probably cooling off in the warm waters 

 through a heat-exchange mechanism 

 along the roof of the mouth.) 



For months after her calf is bom, a 

 mother pumps massive quantities of rich, 

 creamy milk into the calf, which may gain 

 as much as 125 pounds a day — at least in 

 the first few weeks — while also putting on 

 a thick blubber coat. At the end of this pe- 

 riod, the mother — still fasting — leaves the 

 wintering grounds with her calf and swims 

 all 1,400 miles back to the feeding 

 grounds. We are still not certain that we 

 have found the main summer copepod and 

 krill basket for Peninsula Valdes's right 

 whales (although South Georgia does look 

 like a good bet, as do the waters around 

 Tristan da Cunha). 



We can watch the mothers and calves 

 closely from our observation hut (called 

 the cliff hut), located above the only place 

 for miles where the cliffs plunge straight 

 into the water. When the tide is halfway up 

 the cliff or higher, the water is just deep 

 enough for whales to swim directly below 

 the hut. Mothers with calves faithfully fol- 

 low the 16.5-foot-depth contour at Penin- 

 sula Valdes, (just deep enough for a large 

 mother to be clear of the bottom but not 

 enough to allow attacks on her calf from 

 below by killer whales and sharks). They 

 are creatures of habit and will swim to ex- 

 actly the same area — even the same 

 rock — year after year. Once they start hav- 

 ing calves, they return to the bays of 

 Peninsula Valdes once every three years. 

 So while following the 16.5-foot contour, 

 they swim along almost touching the 

 cliffs. Hundreds of whale-sized underwa- 

 ter niches in the eroded hardpan along the 

 shore provide shelter. 



Satellite photographs of Cape Cod, top, 

 and Peninsula Valdes show striking 

 similarities in landforms. 



Roger Payne 



The places chosen by mother whales to 

 defend their calves, unlike the niches 

 where they hide, are open areas with soft, 

 sandy bottoms and plenty of room on 

 every side from which to launch cata- 

 clysmic haymakers. Right whales defend 

 themselves with their tails, which they 

 sweep sideways with stunning effect. (In 

 this sense they are like the "undefended" 

 apatosaurus now believed to have fought 

 off attackers by sweeping them off their 

 feet with its massive tail, perhaps even 

 breaking or disjointing hmbs in the proc- 

 ess.) I suspect that if a person were struck 

 by a right whale's tail, the blow might well 

 be deadly. 



1 once watched a pack of killer whales 

 move along a line of female right whales 

 and their calves. As the orcas approached 

 a mother and calf, the mother would flex 

 her body, cocking her tail for a blow to- 

 ward the closest killer whale. They never 

 attacked. From the cliff hut, Katy observed 

 a nearby group of mothers form a ring 

 around the calves as killer whales passed 

 nearby. With their heads directed toward 

 the center of the circle, they thrashed the 

 water frantically with their flukes. Had 



43 



