Making its debut in Hong Kong on 16 March 2009, a young humpback whale was found surfing the Hong Kong waters until just recently. As AFCD's marine mammal stranding partner, the OPCFHK team joined the monitoring programme throughout the period.

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Facts

• A baleen whale with long flippers up to 1/4to 1/3 of its body length.
• Feeds on krill and small fish up to 1.5 tons a day.
• Adult reaches 12 m to 15 m and weighs 25 to 40 tons.
• Female bears a calf every 2-3 years with gestation period of 12 months.
• Calf was born 3 to 4.5 m and up to 1 ton in weight. It nurses on mother's milk which has a 45% to 60% fat content, until they taste solid food about a year old.
• Found in all the world's oceans following a regular migration route: summering in temperate and polar waters for feeding, and wintering in tropical waters for mating and calving.
• Active and acrobatic with behaviours including "breaching" (throwing themselves completely out of the water), "tail lobbing" (raising flukes out of the water and then slapping it on the surface) and "flipper slapping" (using their flippers to slap the water).
• Male can "sing" long, complex "songs", possibly as a part of mating behaviour. Same population sings the same song which changes from year to year, but differs from other populations.
• The shape and color pattern on the humpback whale's dorsal fin and flukes are distinctive in each animal as fingerprints in humans.
• An easy target for whalers in the past due to their near shore feeding, mating and calving grounds.
• Under worldwide protection since 1966 by the International Whaling Commission.
• Estimated population is around 60,000

Research that OPCFHK supports: