UH Manoa, called the footage “groundbreaking.”
“We’re observing how these animals are manipulating their prey and preparing the prey for capture. [The footage] is allowing us to gain new insights that we really haven’t been able to do before,” Bejder said.
According to Bejder, around 3,000 humpback whales visit Alaska during the summer feeding period. When the whales leave their foraging grounds and migrate 3,000 miles to Hawaii, they stop eating until their return several months later. Upon their return, the whales are very hungry, so they immediately begin bubble-net fishing.
BCwhales.org, participate in this cooperative feeding behavior. One whale typically dives below a school of prey and then slowly begins a spiral dance upward, blowing bubbles in a circular motion to form a bubble net. The bubbles rise to the surface, trapping the school of fish and forcing them toward the surface near the center of the circle.
The laboratory was founded by
Adam Pack, who holds a joint appointment in the departments of psychology and biology. On the team are
Lars Bejder and
Martin van Aswegen of the Marine Mammal Research Program at UH Mānoa, Jens Currie and Stephanie Stack of the Pacific Whale Foundation, Andy Szabo of Alaska Whale Foundation, Shannon Atkinson of University of Alaska, Fairbanks and Kristi West of Hawaiʻi Pacific University.
“Our goal is to learn about the physical and reproductive health of the Hawaiʻi distinct population segment of North Pacific humpback whales by measuring how whale body condition, fertility levels and indicators of stress change while calves are nursing and other whales are fasting over the course of a breeding season,” Pack said.
Above video, the research team uses drones that hover over each whale when it surfaces to measure its body condition. This footage was collected in 2019.
Humpback whales are back in waters off of Maui after their fall migration from along the Northern Pacific rim, and the Marine Mammal Laboratory at the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo, is continuing collaborative research on humpback whale health with scientists from Hawaiʻi and Alaska. During summers, the research team examines the same individual whales in feeding grounds off Southeast Alaska.
The laboratory was founded by
Adam Pack, who holds a joint appointment in the departments of psychology and biology. On the team are