Humpback whale

Photo: Wasini Tour Guide · CC BY-NC

Southern hemisphere humpbacks migrate north through the Shimoni Channel from June to September, passing between the Kenyan coast and the Tanzanian island of Pemba in a predictable annual corridor. Bulls produce the longest and most complex songs of any animal, audible to divers well before any visual sighting. Mothers and calves linger longer than adult males, resting in the protected shallow waters near Mpunguti before continuing south. Their recovery from near-extinction under the International Whaling Commission ban is one of conservation's great success stories.