Rare Beluga Birth Caught on Camera in China

In a rare and stunning display, whale enthusiasts can watch the birth of a baby beluga in a China aquarium after the amazing moment was caught on camera.

The eight-year-old mother whale, named Zhou Ya, gave birth to her calf after a 15-month pregnancy, according to The Telegraph. And then after enduring five hours of labor, out popped the newborn calf, which can be seen swimming to the water's surface and taking its first breaths in the video footage.

The scene was captured at Changsha Underwater World in central China, which is believed to be the first aquarium in the country to successfully breed the mammal.

[Credit: Changsha Underwater World via NewsInWatch]

Belugas, also known as white whales, typically give birth between March and September, mostly between May and July, the NOAA says. Females give birth to single calves - and on rare occasion twins - every two to three years on average. Zhou Ya, like all mother belugas, will nurse her calf for at least 12 to 18 months until the little one's teeth emerge, at which point it can start eating small fish and shrimp on its own. Most calves, however, will continue to nurse for another year after beginning to eat solid food, the agency notes.

With their distinctive color and prominent foreheads, belugas are one of the most familiar and easily recognizable of all the whales. But, they don't grow into this ivory color until they become sexually mature around five years of age, National Geographic points out. Calves are born gray or even brown and eventually fade to white.

These whales are common in the Arctic Ocean's coastal waters, though they are found in subarctic waters as well. Arctic belugas migrate southward in large herds when the sea freezes over, and unfortunately, some get trapped beneath the ice and perish. There are five populations of beluga whales, all of them found in Alaska, but only one of them is endangered, and that is the Cook Inlet stock.

Numbers of Cook Inlet belugas have been severely reduced over the last several decades, diminishing from as many as 1,300 in the late 1970s to about 325 individual whales today, according to the NOAA. Their collapse can be blamed on hunting by indigenous people of the north and by commercial fisheries.

So this recent rare birth is exciting for whale conservationists. The Chinese aquarium will continue to monitor the baby beluga's progress, including when it starts to take breast milk.