The rare sight of two calves swimming alongside a female adult gray whale Monday off Dana Point generated speculation among some on the boat, including its captain, that the young whales might be twins.
Capt. Dave Anderson, of Captain Dave’s Dolphin and Whale Safari, captured the accompanying footage and described the sighting as “the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen on the ocean.”
It’s doubtful, however, that the calves are twins. One is noticeably larger than the other, and a more likely scenario is that one of the calves lost its mother and has been accepted by the adult female, as the trio migrates from Baja California calving and nursing grounds to Arctic feeding grounds.
Alisa Schulman-Janiger, a gray whale researcher, commented on Facebook:
“Dana Pt., CA: Gray Whale with Two Calves, caught on drone video yesterday! One calf appears to be larger than the other. Most likely one calf was orphaned or separated from its mom, and is traveling with another cow/calf pair; hopefully she can nurse them both.
“Many years ago I watched a gray whale mom with two calves off our Gray Whale Census [station] at Pt. Vicente [in Los Angeles County]. Documentation of cetacean twins is extraordinarily rare; the only way to verify if they are twins is to obtain and analyze a genetic sample from each.”
Schulman-Janiger pointed out that based on the rotundness of the adult female, she most likely has not been nursing both calves since birth; otherwise, she said, the mother “would be drained; she’d look emaciated. It's more likely than one was orphaned/abandoned, and then adopted; she probably is nursing both now."
Whatever the case, these whales are hundreds of miles behind most of the 20,000 gray whales migrating toward and the Bering Sea region.
The northbound migration off Southern California generally peaks in two stages: males and other individuals whales in mid-March; and mothers and calves from the end of April into early May.
However, cow-calf pairs are often spotted in early June as well.
I have footage of when the mother was trying to get the second baby away from her, then later she was spotted much more calm with the two by her so we feel that she had adopted the second baby. This is awesome that they are all still together and headed north
Posted by: patti jeremiason | Jun 05, 2015 at 08:27 PM