Chatham Strait, Alaska
This humpback whale is not trying to eat a Thayer’s Gull. The gulls are waiting to pick herring from the water that these lunge-feeding whales conveniently brought to the surface and then left behind. We witnessed this magnificent scene being repeated all morning long. First the humpbacks, seven individuals in the herd that we were watching most of the time, would all perform a terminal or fluke-up dive within a few seconds of each other. Then, listening with our hydrophone, we would hear the “singer” of the group using haunting vocalizations to corral a school of herring into a tight ball. Another whale would blow a net of bubbles around the school to disorient and frighten the fish, causing them to bunch up even tighter and rise toward the surface. Using this combination of techniques in coordinated effort to bring their prey into position, the whales were then able to lunge through and engulf entire schools of herring in their distended lower jaws. In this picture, we see the inside of the whale’s upper jaw with the palatal ridge running down the center as well as the expanded pleats of the lower jaw. As for the gulls, they can see the bubbles and perhaps hear the tremulous underwater singing and so served as our “spotters,” flying with imperfect but quite satisfactory reliability to where the whales would soon emerge. This, of course, made for incredible photographic opportunities not to mention absolutely thrilling memories that will last a lifetime.
Later in the afternoon, representatives of the Alaska Whale Foundation (AWF), an organization supported by Lindblad and our guests, came aboard to discuss their research, including a study of the sounds made by the humpbacks in their cooperative feeding efforts. This research and the data it provides, along with other AWF projects such as the Humpback Whale Recovery Program (which focuses on freeing whales that have become entangled in fishing gear), are critical components in our efforts to understand, and thereby help to conserve, this population of whales.
This humpback whale is not trying to eat a Thayer’s Gull. The gulls are waiting to pick herring from the water that these lunge-feeding whales conveniently brought to the surface and then left behind. We witnessed this magnificent scene being repeated all morning long. First the humpbacks, seven individuals in the herd that we were watching most of the time, would all perform a terminal or fluke-up dive within a few seconds of each other. Then, listening with our hydrophone, we would hear the “singer” of the group using haunting vocalizations to corral a school of herring into a tight ball. Another whale would blow a net of bubbles around the school to disorient and frighten the fish, causing them to bunch up even tighter and rise toward the surface. Using this combination of techniques in coordinated effort to bring their prey into position, the whales were then able to lunge through and engulf entire schools of herring in their distended lower jaws. In this picture, we see the inside of the whale’s upper jaw with the palatal ridge running down the center as well as the expanded pleats of the lower jaw. As for the gulls, they can see the bubbles and perhaps hear the tremulous underwater singing and so served as our “spotters,” flying with imperfect but quite satisfactory reliability to where the whales would soon emerge. This, of course, made for incredible photographic opportunities not to mention absolutely thrilling memories that will last a lifetime.
Later in the afternoon, representatives of the Alaska Whale Foundation (AWF), an organization supported by Lindblad and our guests, came aboard to discuss their research, including a study of the sounds made by the humpbacks in their cooperative feeding efforts. This research and the data it provides, along with other AWF projects such as the Humpback Whale Recovery Program (which focuses on freeing whales that have become entangled in fishing gear), are critical components in our efforts to understand, and thereby help to conserve, this population of whales.
