WIAdmin, 21. September 2017

More days with the Belugas in the cold waters of the Hudson Bay are over now. And slowly we feel that our bodys have been exposed to the cold every day.

The question why the belugas migrated into the river a few days ago has to be explained with the hunt for one of the animals.

We will try to meet the white angels for two more days …and say „good bye“ to them.

What is pleasing is that we have seen so many young animals. The young belugas are still blue-brown to brown in contrast to the white adult animals. For up to two years the little one stays with the mother and get their tooth break in the second year of his life.

The Hudson Bay population of nearly 60,000 is currently considered to be stable.
But there are facts endangering their furure – like a disputed oil-loading point in the Churchill River.

And if there was not the little fish called capelin, there would be no nursery for Belugas. 35 kilos of capelin eats a single whale during this time – on one day!
With 4,000 whales around the rivermouth, this means 140,000 kilo capelin a day! This requires a stable population of this fish-species.

What impressed most in all the encounters was the communication between the animals. The variety of sounds is so unbelievable! In a group of 20 animals it sounds like a total mess of sounds – but for sure just for us!

It shows what intense social contacts and links these animals have. And even if they raise their young ones here in the safety of the Churchill River, they have a relatively large radius of action.

When you experience these animals in the wild you realize very clear that they are not belong into aquariums. No whale or dolphin in the world deserved the psychological and physical pain to sit in one of these blue prisons and to become a clown for food. Their social needs and abilities are much too complex. Their radius of action is much too big. And visitors of those aquariums can definitely not learn or obsevere the smallest fact about their natural behaivour.

Louise from Sea North Tours told us that in 1991 the last Belugas were caught in this area for an aquarium. There were unpleasant and heartbreaking scenes.
She was also able to tell a nice episode about their language behavior.

The sounds of the whales sounded not always the same way. There were completely different noises when the Belugas were feeding!
Much louder – and many short, whistling sounds – hard to describe if you do not speak „Belugish“ 😉

Therefore a short video from the first day when the animals cultivated their social contacts and seemed so curious about us. On this first day my GoPro was still on complete wrong settings and cut the picture as I photographed … but it shows the curious nature of the animals. Be sure to turn on the speakers!

Yesterday, the tide had its peak late in the evening. For this reason we where going out late. Surrounded by an estimated over a hundred hunting Belugas we enjoyed this atmosphere – although it slowly felt a bit cold. Two polar bears observed the scenery on the rocky coast. The fact that one of the bears went into the water, gave us a short break to warm up on the Zodiak.

Read more about the Belugas, their language, their endangerment and the importance of Belugasnot for science in the CHICO magazine coming out this winter. There is still so much to tell.

It is now 15:30 and in 2 hours we go out again to the Belugas. I can not wait to see and hear them again!

Some pictures of the last days: