Photo: GUILLERMO ARIAS / Getty Images
A calf nurses while swimming with its mother and when it ends, a trail of milk dyes the waters of the Colombian Pacific white. The sequence was recorded in an extraordinary video that is a key piece for the research and conservation of humpback whales.
Behaviors as intimate as this are usually difficult to register, biologist Natalia Botero, director of the Macuáticos Colombia Foundation and one of the researchers who captured the exact moment of lactation, in August 2022.
Once fed, the calf -about 900 kilograms- swims to the surface to get air in the Gulf of Cupica, located in a region of the Colombian Pacific, declared a biosphere reserve by Unesco in mid-June.
“It is a unique record. Despite a decades-long effort focused on this species, thousands of researchers, hours of work, collaborations, records are extremely rare when it comes to lactation“, says Botero in the Explora Park in Medellín, where the video was presented to the public for the first time on June 22.
Camera on the calf’s back
To achieve the feat, the scientists installed devices about 25 centimeters in length on the calf’s back that adhered with suction cups for a few hours without harming them. The scientific tourism platform Madre Agua Colombia, the Macuáticos Colombia Foundation and the University of California Santa Cruz of the United States participated in the project.
“From a scientific point of view it is a milestone, it is a very important achievement. And from the point of view of conservation as well”, points out Botero.
Between June and November, Colombian waters are home to the southeastern Pacific humpback whales (also called stock G), where they carry out fertilization processes, childbirth and part of the calf rearing.
Only two similar records in the world
Hence the importance of the video, because according to Botero, only two similar registries on breastfeeding had been made in the world, on the French island of La Reunion (Indian Ocean) and in Hawaii (Pacific). Parental care, copulation between male and female and childbirth complete the behaviors that are difficult for science to access. The first viewers of the whale’s lactation were the residents of the department of Chocó, where the video was recorded.
“We are very interested in delving into aspects such as these, making disclosures with the general public and with local communities because we are interested in all these actions that are generated from this material and the interest that is generated in conservation and in ecosystems seafarers spread and also benefit the communities”, concludes Botero.
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