About 1 p.m. Monday off northern New South Wales, Alexander Forrest filmed what ORRCA says is the world’s first drone footage of a humpback whale giving birth, capturing the calf’s emergence and first breaths.
A plume of blood first alerted Forrest to the birth; the footage then showed the mother lifting the newborn to the surface in a resting behavior called logging so it could breathe consciously.
ORRCA tracked the pair until sunset, recording other whales approaching and sharks nearby, though researchers said sharks were likely drawn by afterbirth rather than posing a major threat to the calf.
The sighting comes during a strong east-coast migration of about 50,000 humpbacks this year, up from roughly 7,000 in 2004 after the population neared extinction in the 1960s.