Aloha,
With this latest huge storm finally passing the islands, the ocean is still too stirred up for us to operate our cruises. So instead of reporting on our whale sightings, I’m taking advantage of this whale-less Whale Report to correct some erroneous information I posted in our March 9th Fact of the Day.
For decades we’ve been teaching that Humpback calves drink approximately 100 gallons of milk each day. In fact, if you do a quick internet search, you’ll find that “fact” repeated over and over again, with actual calf milk consumption quantities reported to range between 50 – 150 gallons each day.
Turns out, this is another one of those urban myths. Dr Rachel Cartwright, lead researcher of the Keiki Kohola Project (roughly translating to “Youngest Whale Project”) reports that due to the fact that Humpbacks mothers aren’t feeding while they’re nursing, it would be impossible to sustain that high of a rate of milk production. She looked at Humpback calf growth rates, daily activity energy budgets and assimilation efficiency, and determined that Humpback calves are actually drinking somewhere between 11 and 15 gallons of milk each day.
Still…if you compare an average 1 month old Humpback calf’s milk consumption per ounce of body weight to an average 1 month old human’s milk consumption per ounce of body weight, the Humpback is drinking close to 5 times the amount of milk per ounce of body weight than a human baby drinks. And that’s not even accounting for calorie consumption. Fat comprises approximately 30 – 50% fat of Humpback milk, while the fat content of human milk averages about 3.8%.
Mahalo to our Whale Report reader Amalia M. for pointing us towards Dr. Cartwright’s research. And mahalo to all of you who read our reports and Facts of the Day. We hope we’ll get to share more facts with you out on the water together soon!
Mahalo,
Claire