East Antarctica: Minke Whales
Minke Whales are the smallest of the baleen whales and thanks to their small sizes somewhat avoided being hunted to near extinction – there are still around 0.5-1 million minke whales around. They are 8-10m long and 5-10 tons in weight. They are abundant in the southern ocean, though not easy to spot and even harder to photograph – they don’t breach or show flukes – but just surface, show a small shark-like fin on the back and disappear. But as usual, I got lucky and snapped these pics of two minke whales swimming through the iceflows at 65 degrees south. By the way – nobody else on the ship got these pics!
