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Southern (Antarctic) Minke Whales

Like some of the other whale species, the minke derived its name from those who sought to kill it. The story goes that a Norwegian whaler with the surname, Meincke, had a reputation for killing whales indiscriminately, regardless of size or age. Minke became a catch-all term for small whales.

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Information about Southern (Antarctic) Minke Whales

People think of the minke whale as small because it is often compared to its fellow baleens. Though minkes are the smallest of the rorquals, encountering one during a whale watching tour to Antarctica is an eye-popping experience. Minkes grow to thirty feet in length and weigh up to ten tons, resembling a pygmy right whale. The species is dark gray with a double swath of lighter gray across its torso. Its belly and the edge of its flippers are trimmed in white. The Antarctic minke has between 200 and 300 pairs of baleen plates and twenty-two to thirty-eight ventral grooves. It is the narrow v-shaped head that visitors on whale watching trips to Antarctica will see first as a minke breaches.

The Antarctic minke is considered a distinct species from the common minke. Common minkes from the northern hemisphere spend summers far from the Antarctic pack ice where southern minkes are found but inhabit the same temperate, sub-tropical and tropical waters in winter. Visitors will see most minkes on Antarctica tours but may also be able to see some during Brazil tours while in Bahia. The common minke is slightly larger and darker in color with a more distinct white band on its flippers.

The minke communicates in what sounds like a mechanical noise, traveling alone or in small groups at a maximum speed of about twenty miles per hour. Feeding on a diet of krill and small fish, the minke captures its prey using a variety of strategies, including herding them to the surface. They mate and give birth after a ten-month gestation between August and October. Calves are weaned after two years.

The Antarctic minke acquired protective status from the International Whaling Commission in 1986. Only Japan and Norway hunt minkes today, their efforts sometimes foiled by environmentalists. Japan established a whale research program in the Antarctic (JARPA) in 1987. Its quota today stands at about 500 minkes per year. Norway kills about the same number of minkes, but in northern waters. Regardless of any on-again off-again rules humans may promulgate, southern minkes will always have the orca to look out for, its only other predator.

Minkes live about fifty years. A population assessment by the International Whaling Commission is underway to update the count conducted in the 1980s that estimated 500,000 to a million minkes existed in the Southern Ocean. The more popular whale watching Antarctica tours become, the more opposition to whaling for minkes will increase.

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