Just as humans use fishing nets to capture scaley snacks, humpback whales rely on bubbles from their blowholes to round up dinner.
Researchers from the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa filmed the massive mammals using the “bubble-net feeding” technique in the waters of Southeast Alaska.
“The footage is rather groundbreaking,” Lars Bejder, director of the UH Mānoa Marine Mammal Research Program (MMRP), said in a statement.
Collected data provides insight into how whales carry out bubble-net feeding (via University of Hawai’i)
Using cameras and sensors attached to the whales, as well as video from aerial drones, the team recorded data for a project investigating causes of a possible decline in humpback whale numbers.
“We’re observing how these animals are manipulating their prey and preparing their prey for capture,” Bejder explained. “It is allowing us to gain new insights that we really haven’t been able to do before.”
Unique to humpbacks and Bryde’s whales, bubble-net feeding is often done in groups of two or three to 60 at a time.
As the group circles a school of small fish, they work together to disorient and corral the swimmers into a net of bubbles, ranging from 10 to 100 feet in diameter.
After about six months of chowing down, the whales, newly energized and sated, head south to work off their weight gain during breeding season.
Some 3,000 humpback whales visit Alaska every summer, and up to 10,000 are counted in Hawai’i for winter mating. When the creatures leave their foraging grounds and migrate 3,000 miles, they stop eating until their return.
The science of bubble-net feeding remains unclear: Some believe the acoustics from whales’ exhalations trap the fish, others speculate the behavior is merely a form of socializing. The most popular theory, however, is one of survival.
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