Rip Nicklin; Minden Pictures 



A mother and large calf rest in shallow water, below. A right whale, 

 opposite, breaches off Peninsula Valdes. 



Roger Payne 



of the right whale's mating system, in 

 which multiple males compete to insemi- 

 nate the female. The one who gets the 

 most sperm into the female will have the 

 best chance of being the father of a calf. 



Yet by cooperating rather than compet- 

 ing, males gain at least some chance of 

 mating with a female. In our bay, we have 

 seen groups of males stay together for pe- 

 riods of at least six weeks. We are not sure 

 yet how they are related or how they got 

 together in the first place, but we have 

 watched such groups try to push a female, 

 who was lying belly up and inaccessible, 

 under the water so one of them could mate 

 with her. 



We suspect that many of the groups are 

 made up of related males, hi a group of 

 brothers, even if one whale gets less than 

 his rightful share of successful matings, he 

 still shares roughly half the genes that his 

 more successful brother passed along to 

 the next generation. If groups of related 

 males are thus favored, this would explain 

 why every year, for three years, some 

 young males return to the same breeding 

 areas to gather with their brothers. 



We've also noticed tliat while a mother 

 discourages her calf from playing (be- 

 cause the mother has to provide all of the 

 calf's caloric intake at a time when she is 



fasting), she will allow her calf to play 

 with subadults, at least some of which are 

 her calves from previous years. In this 

 way, two related males can get to know 

 each other so that later, when both are sex- 

 ually mature, they may become members 

 of the same mating group. 



The sense of tranquillity, of hfe without 

 urgency, power without aggression, has 

 won my heart to whales. One time I 

 watched a mother frustrate her calf's at- 

 tempts at nursing by moving into shallow 

 water where the calf could not get under- 

 neath her to nurse — ^just the way she 

 would lead a male into water too shallow 

 for him to fit beneath her The calf still 

 pestered her, so she rolled on her back, 

 easing herself under the calf and cradling 

 it in her flippers. She then came up from 

 below, stranding the calf high and dry on 

 her chest, and patting it slowly. 



As the season at Peninsula Valdes nears 

 its end, the right whales ease themselves 

 out through the entrance to Golfo San 

 Jose, perhaps to rendezvous briefly with 

 companions and acquaintances at Punta 

 Norte and then set out across the vast 

 South Atlantic toward eitiier South Geor- 

 gia or Tristan da Cunha. I always wonder if 

 I will see them again and what revelations 

 I will be privileged to witness. D 



46 Natural History 1/94 



