Cape Town - The resighting of a female humpback whale, named Ampersand for the &-like scar on her fluke, has broken the country’s record for the longest period between the first and last sighting for a South African humpback whale.
Ampersand – recently re-sighted by Ash Appleby from the Whale Expedition SA on February 11 off Dassen Island, north of Cape Town – was first photographed and observed on January 15, 1988, by a small huddle of whale scientists in St Helena Bay.
Now, 35 years and 27 days later, the same whale has been spotted and photographed by Whale Expedition SA.
Els Vermeulen, director of the Mammal Research Institute (MRI) Whale Unit confirmed that this was in fact the longest period between sightings of a humpback whale in the country.
Alexander Vogel, who runs the Seafari App that allows users to report marine mammal sightings worldwide with Vic Cockroft, said the technology involved to reveal this incredible phenomenon was made with a matching algorithm developed by Ted Cheeseman, called Happywhale.
“The fluke picture from 1988 was supplied by the MRI Whale Unit and the most recent picture was from Whale Expedition SA in the Yzerfontein area, which specialises in Humpback whale supergroups found in the area during summer,” Vogel said.
Appleby said although it was hard to tell in this image, Ampersand was massive and “an absolute privilege to witness”.
Whale Expedition SA thanked Seafari App, Happywhale and the MRI Whale Unit.
“While we get all the fun of countless hours on the water in search of and documenting these giants, the real credit should go to the guys spending an equal amount of hours (arguably more at times) behind the scenes making apps and algorithms to make this all possible,” they said.
Vogel said more information about the record-breaking whale, Ampersand, came from information provided by Jaco Barendse, who led research into the West Coast Humpback whales just more than 20 years ago.
“Turns out that this special whale is a female who produced three calves in consecutive years, the first recorded case in southern hemisphere humpback whales! She was seen 11 times between January 1988 and January 2003, and then it took 20 years for Ash and his team to record sighting number 12,” Vogel said.
Editor’s Note: A previous version of this article mentioned that Ampsersand was named by Ash Appleby instead of the the guys who originally photographed her in 1988.