座头鲸妈妈将她熟睡的幼鲸推到水面，夏威夷毛伊岛 Humpback whale mother pushes her sleeping calf to surface, Maui, Hawaii (© Ralph Pace/Minden Pictures)

座头鲸妈妈将她熟睡的幼鲸推到水面，夏威夷毛伊岛 Humpback whale mother pushes her sleeping calf to surface, Maui, Hawaii (© Ralph Pace/Minden Pictures)

A whale of a picture

The family drama you see playing out here in the Pacific Ocean near Maui, Hawaii, is a humpback whale calf getting a little nudge from its mom. She presumably wants the sleepy youngster to practice surfacing, something these amazing marine mammals are famous for doing in dramatic fashion. Winter is calving season, when thousands of humpbacks swim to the warm waters off Hawaii, making them a common sight from November until April. Because they're known to hang around near the ocean's surface, breaching or slapping the water with their tails, humpbacks are a favorite of whale watchers everywhere.

Most humpbacks are nomadic and can be found in all the oceans of the world, with some populations migrating distances of up to 5,000 miles as they move from breeding grounds in warmer, tropical waters, to colder areas where food is more plentiful. And when they eat, they don't mess around, consuming up to 2,000 pounds of food each day. They eat tiny crustaceans called krill, as well as small fish. Once on the verge of extinction because of commercial whaling, legislative protections in the US and around the world have helped the humpback population to rebound to somewhere around 80,000 worldwide.

像鲸鱼一样的图片

你在夏威夷毛伊岛附近的太平洋上看到的家庭剧，是一头座头鲸幼崽被它妈妈轻轻推了一下。她大概是想让这个昏昏欲睡的年轻人练习浮出水面，这些神奇的海洋哺乳动物以戏剧化的方式出名。冬季是产犊季节，成千上万的座头鲸游到夏威夷附近温暖的水域，使它们从11月到4月成为常见的景象。因为众所周知，座头鲸在海面附近游荡，用尾巴冲破水面或拍打水面，所以座头鲸是各地鲸鱼观察者的最爱。

大多数座头鲸都是游牧民族，分布在世界上所有的海洋中，当它们从温暖的热带水域的繁殖地迁徙到食物更丰富的寒冷地区时，有些座头鲸的迁徙距离可达5000英里。当他们吃东西的时候，他们不会乱来，每天消耗多达2000磅的食物。它们吃被称为磷虾的微小甲壳类动物，以及小鱼。由于商业捕鲸一度濒临灭绝，美国和世界各地的立法保护帮助座头鲸数量反弹至全球约8万头。