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Agence France-Presse

The sight of thousands of whales surfacing, jumping and playing off the coast of South America as they migrate toward their breeding grounds is one of nature's most majestic displays.
But global warming is killing off their food and changing their age-old migratory routes.
To the tourists watching a humpback whale frolic with her newborn calf in the tropical waters off Ecuador's coast near Puerto Lopez, the sight of enormous fins surfacing, tails flipping and blowholes spouting is breathtaking.
The same scenes can be found up and down the South American coast, from Puerto Piramides in Argentina to Cabo Blanco in Peru and Bahia Malaga in Colombia.
But to marine biologists, these huge mammals are not as carefree and healthy as they appear.
They are skinny, covered in parasites and exhausted from the increasingly long journeys they are making to reproduce.
“You can see their bones. They're sick. They have parasites. We never used to see that,” said Ecuadorian marine biologist Cristina Castro as she scanned the horizon for more humpback whales, the species she has studied for the past 18 years.
These whales swim thousands of kilometres each year from Antarctica to the waters around the equator to have their young, which measure three to 4.5 metres at birth and can weigh up to one tonne.
But as ocean temperatures rise, whales are migrating earlier and travelling farther.
Warmer waters are killing off the supply of krill, the small crustaceans that are whales‘ main food source in their Arctic feeding grounds. The whales eat several tonnes a day to fatten up for their journeys.
Rising temperatures also trick the whales’ biological clocks into thinking it is time to migrate.
“They are changing their migration cycles. They used to arrive here in July. Now we see them in May,” said Castro.
Whales are also continuing north beyond the equator, as far as Costa Rica - a behavior never seen before, she said.
The International Whaling Commission estimates there were 8,000 to 10,000 humpback whales this year in the Pacific breeding grounds, which stretch from Peru to Costa Rica.
Roger Payne, the American scientist who brought humpback whales' songs to world attention in the 1970s, said whales are also threatened by the acidification of the oceans caused by rising concentrations of carbon dioxide in the water.
Forty-five years of research off Argentina have shown that this and other effects of climate change are killing off whales' food, he said.
“The females will give birth only when the conditions to feed their young are favourable,” Payne said.
“Nothing is nearly as important as the threat that we get from that effect.”
When there are less krill in Antarctica, birth rates drop at the equator, and calves tend to have a worse survival rate.
“Everything is linked,” said Payne's Argentine colleague Mariano Sironi, a specialist in southern right whales.


Whales under threat as climate change kills off food and forces them to alter ancient migration routes

A Franca Austral whale (Southern Right Whale) and her white calf swim in the New Golf near Puerto Piramides at Peninsula Valdes, Patagonian province of Chubut, Argentina on September 30, 2015. Thousands of southern right whales come every year to Peninsula Valdes to complete their reproductive cycle. AFP PHOTO / JUAN MABROMATA

A Southern Right Whale and her white calf swim near Puerto Piramides, on the coast of Argentina. Photo: AFP

Whale apocalypse: More than 300 huge whales found dead in Chile, in worst stranding ever recorded

In this photo taken on April 21, 2015, and released on Tuesday, Dec. 1, 2015, by the Huinay Scientific Center, Sei whales lie dead at Caleta Buena, in the southern Aysen region of Chile. The coast of southern Chile has turned into a grave for 337 sei whales that were found beached in what scientists say is one of the biggest whale strandings ever recorded. (Vreni Haussermann/Huinay Scientific Center via AP)

(FILE) Handout photo released by the Huinay Scientific Field Station of sei whales beached at the Gulf of Penas, Chile on April 21, 2015. More than 300 whales have been found washed up in a remote inlet in Patagonia in southern Chile in one of the largest die-offs on record, researchers said on December 01, 2015. AFP PHOTO / HUINAY SCIENTIFIC FIELD STATION / VRENI HAUSSERMANN RESTRICTED TO EDITORIAL USE-MANDATORY CREDIT AFP PHOTO / HUINAY SCIENTIFIC FIELD STATION / VRENI HAUSSERMANN-NO MARKETING NO ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS-DISTRIBUTED AS A SERVICE TO CLIENTS

In this photo taken on April 21, 2015, and released on Tuesday, Dec. 1, 2015, by the Huinay Scientific Center, a dead Sei whale lies in Caleta Buena, in the southern Aysen region of Chile. The coast of southern Chile has turned into a grave for 337 sei whales that were found beached in what scientists say is one of the biggest whale strandings ever recorded. (Vreni Haussermann/Huinay Scientific Center via AP)

A photo released on Tuesday, by the Huinay Scientific Centre shows sei whales dead at Caleta Buena, in the southern Aysen region of Chile, part of the worst large-whale stranding ever recorded. Photo: AP

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