Baby blue whale video

April 13, 2009

baby_blue_whaleA baby blue whale filmed off Costa Rica may be the first to have been photographed underwater and adds to evidence that a blue whale hot spot in the Pacific Ocean is a birthing ground for the endangered species.

During a January 2008 expedition to the “Dome”—a warm-water region that draws blue whales from hundreds of miles away—the researchers had begun to lose hope of finding a calf. Then two telltale spouts began erupting at the sea surface.

“Oh, tell me that one of them is a small blow, please,” Bruce Mate, of the Marine Mammal Institute at Oregon State University, says in the documentary.

One of the spouts did turn out to be that of a calf, which approached the research boat—surprising the scientists, given blue whale mothers’ protective reputations.

A photographer and videographer dived in and soon had the visual evidence needed to identify the whale as a baby blue.

From National Geographic. Full article and video HERE