Baby Blue
Blue whales mature at the age of 5 or 6 years. After reaching maturity, the females give birth to a calf every 2 or 3 years.
Gestation takes 11 months, and the newborn calves are 8 m long and weigh about 4 tonnes. In size and weight, they are approximately
as big as 2 minivans.
For the first 6 months of their lives, the calves drink mothers' milk (they are mammals). Drinking 50 gallons of milk per day,
baby blue whales gain 8 pounds an hour (about 200 pounds a day) and grow about 4 cm per day.
When they are 6 months old, and have roughly doubled in length (they are now approximately half as big as they will be when
they reach maturity, so they are about as long as a Vancouver trolley bus) - they start to eat krill, and to travel the oceans alone.
