Humpbacked whales spend most of their life in the Antarctic. But once a year they migrate 5,000 km to Hervey Bay where, in the shallow waters protected by Fraser Island, the coast and the southern end of the Great Barrier Reef, they mate and give birth to their young. Like most humans, most animals prefer to do this sort of thing in private – but this is difficult if you’re a whale. Especially nowadays, when there aren’t many of you left, and everyone wants to know that you’re still there. Each year, thousands of humans (most of whom would never dream of watching their own species in such personal acts) make their own annual trek up to Hervey Bay. The whales put on a suitably frisky display of ‘breaching’ – bursting through the surface and belly-flopping with an enormous splash, like huge ungainly dolphins. Or if they’re not feeling so energetic, they’ll sometimes spout instead. Then they coyly retire to the privacy of the depths to get on with what they came here for.
     

Humpbacked whales can weigh up to 40 tons, and are often 15 m long, so they must be feeling fairly frisky when they start breaching. (Imagine something the size and weight of a loaded articulated lorry leaping over a motorway bridge.)
     

Until the 1950s as many as 12,000 humpbacked whales used to make the annual trek to Hervey Bay. By the 1960s the Antarctic whaling fleets had reduced this to less than 200. Fortunately, over the few last decades this number has steadily increased, and continues to do so.