According to whale watchers this year is a spectacular season and the Mammal Research Institute Whale Unit agrees with this. On 2 August the MRI conducted their first aerial survey to count southern right whales between Hermanus and Witsand. Along this stretch of coast, they counted a total of 248 females with calves, and 40 adults without a calf. Of these, 60% (155 females with calves) were located in the De Hoop Collection Nature Reserve, mainly around Koppie Alleen. In Walker Bay they counted 20 females with calves, and six females with calves were in Struisbaai. Carl Bloemstein captured the image of this female and her calf near Hawston’s harbour. “These numbers are a slight increase from numbers counted in August 2021 (158 females with calves), 2020 (71 females with calves) and 2019 (142 females with calves). However, they are far lower than the record of 702 females with calves counted in August 2018, and so our hope to see another bumper year in 2022 (4 year calving interval after 2018) may unfortunately not become reality, a worrying trend which we will monitor closely,” said the spokesperson of the MRI.Photo: Carl Bloemstein
