A female humpback whale has broken the record for longest distance traveled by a mammal – 9,800 kilometers (6,125 miles) to be exact. ”It is the longest documented movement by a mammal, about 400 kms (250 miles) longer than the longest seasonal migration that has been reported,” according to the research, headed by Peter Stevick of the College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Maine.
Discovering this epic migration was a lucky accident. The humpback was photographed the first time in the breeding grounds at Abrolhos Bank, off Brazil’s southeastern coast, on August 7, 1999. By chance, she was caught on film again two years later on September 21, 2001 by a commercial whale-watching tour at a breeding ground near the Ile Sainte Marie off the eastern coast of Madagascar. She was identified in both locations by the distinctive markings and shape of her tail.
This whale’s journey is more than just a record breaker – it may completely change our understanding of the way humpback’s migrate and breed. Relatively little is known about the deep water species, but Humpbacks have always been thought to migrate in tight, north-south patterns that kept their breeding pools relatively narrow. Scientists also believed that only male whales migrated long distances.
If this whale’s behavior is common to humpbacks neither of those assumptions about the whales may be accurate. This is good news for the survival of the species. There are seven distinct breeding strains of humpback, and several sub-strains, but the perceived narrowness of their gene pool has always been a big risk factor for the humpbacks, who have been fighting it’s way back from endangered status over the last few decades. Most of the populations of humpbacks have been put on the “Least Concerned” list since 2008.
