Momma, baby whale join surfers in lineup; a ‘surreal’ encounter

Surfers near Sydney, Australia, were greeted by an endangered southern right whale and her calf recently as they rode waves and sat on their boards.

Surfers near Sydney, Australia, were greeted by an endangered southern right whale and her calf recently as they rode waves and sat on their boards.

“They were there for about two days,” Tabitha Blake, one of the Shelly Beach surfers, told FTW Outdoors. “I was surfing with them for two hours. It was amazing and it felt so surreal to be able to be up that close and personal.”

The accompanying Instagram footage, captured by researcher Megan Smythe, shows both whales interacting just beyond the surf as two surfers enjoy a front-row view from the lineup.

In a second video clip, shared by Smythe to the Whale Reports Central Coast group Facebook page, four surfers, including Blake (wearing a ponytail), are shown smiling in appreciation after the right whale calf spyhops next to mom. (Click here to view the video.)

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Remarkably, the surfers remained calm and resisted whatever temptation there might have been to paddle closer to the 40-ton whale and her calf.

“All surfers kept a safe distance as the two whales kept coming in closer,” Smythe told FTW Outdoors. “I spent five hours watching them and it was unreal.”

Smythe captured her footage July 13 at Shelly Beach in Manly, a suburb of Sydney in New South Wales.

She said the whales remained for two days and seemed to be curious about the surfers. The same whales were spotted inside Sydney Harbor a few days later.

Southern right whales, which can measure 50-plus feet, are found throughout the Southern Hemisphere. They were hunted extensively until about the 1960s and are listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act.

–Video and images are courtesy of Megan Smythe

Entangled right whale carcass a feast for great white sharks

A North Atlantic right whale that was found dead Friday off South Carolina appears to have become a feast for great white sharks.

A North Atlantic right whale that was found dead Friday off South Carolina appears to have become a feast for great white sharks.

The 12-year-old male right whale, nicknamed Cottontail, had previously been seen badly entangled and in poor health.

On February 18, a disentanglement team attached a telemetry buoy to Cottontail off Florida’s Treasure Coast in the hope of later attempting the difficult task of relocating the whale and removing the fishing gear.

Photo: Clearwater Marine Aquarium Research Institute and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

Cottontail, who was spotted entangled as early as last October, was found dead 15 miles off Myrtle Beach. Biologists were able to collect samples and place a tag on the carcass to track its location.

Photo: Clearwater Marine Aquarium Research Institute and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

North Atlantic right whales are critically endangered and Cottontail’s death changes NOAA Fisheries’ Unusual Mortality Event count to 34 dead and 14 seriously injured.

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The UME off the U.S. and Canada began in 2017, when 17 stranded right whales were counted. The leading cause of death is “human interaction,” notably fishing gear entanglement and vessel strikes.

Photo: Clearwater Marine Aquarium Research Institute and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

Aerial images captured Saturday by a Clearwater Marine Aquarium Research Institute crew show great white sharks swimming around Cottontail’s carcass. At one point an air crew counted nine sharks near the mammal.

Since Saturday, poor weather has hampered efforts to reach the whale for further biological study.