How do bowhead whales in the unbroken darkness of the Arctic’s polar winter keep busy during breeding season? They sing, of course. From late autumn to early spring, off the east coast of Greenland, some 200 bowheads, hunted to the edge of extinction, serenade each other with compositions from a vast repertoire of song, according […]
Federal authorities are taking most humpback whales off the endangered species list, saying they have recovered enough in the last 40 years to warrant being removed. The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) said on Monday that nine of the 14 distinct populations of humpbacks would be removed, while four distinct populations remain listed as endangered […]
A famous white humpback whale has been spotted on his annual migration to Australia’s north. Migaloo is known for his distinctive colouring and for many years was the only documented all-white humpback whale in the world. He has been sighted off the coast of New South Wales state, including the resort town of Byron Bay. […]
The habits of New York’s little-understood whale population are to be fully analysed for the first time, with scientists hoping the new information will help protect the marine behemoths that navigate one of the busiest shipping areas in the world. An acoustic monitoring buoy has been deployed off the coast of Long Island to eavesdrop […]
The latest release in the humpback whale’s haunting sound collection is a track so unusual that scientists hardly know what to make of it. Unlike anything on the hit album Songs of the Humpback Whale (released in 1970, the wildlife recording went multi-platinum), the mysterious new noise has such a low beat it’s scarcely audible. […]
Thirty large whales have recently washed ashore on Alaskan coasts, prompting a federal agency to declare an “unusual mortality event” and mount an official investigation into the mystery of what could be killing so many marine mammals. Scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) are “very concerned” about how many whales are stranding […]
Dozens of whales are frolicking off Northern California’s coast in a feast for the eyes that has also prompted federal officials to issue a boating warning. Officials documented 115 humpback, blue and fin whales during a one-hour survey last weekend near the Farallon Islands, the Marin Independent Journal reported on Saturday. “We are alerting small […]
Watch the frenzy of excitement as an army of ocean predators, from dolphins and humpback whales to dive-bombing gannets, pursue the vast mobile feast that is the Sardine Run. Cameraman Bart Lukasik digs into his archives to bring us a selection of last year’s most breathtaking footage from the epic migration. This video […]
The humpback whales of Alaska have developed an ingenious method of fishing for herring, but it only works if they all co-operate. The humpback has the most diverse feeding repertoire of all baleen whales. Its most inventive technique is known as bubble net feeding; a group of whales swims in a shrinking circle blowing bubbles […]
Apart from their massive size, humpback whales are most known for their extensive, complex “songs” that male humpbacks use for communication. But, humpback whales also have some fascinating feeding behaviors that are also worthy of attention—particularly bubble-netting. This form of feeding behavior occurs when groups of about four to twenty humpback whales concentrate their prey—like […]
Each year, thousands of people embark on whale watching tours in hope of spotting the majestic humpback whale in the wild. These baleen whales—who engage in lively leaps and flips, enhanced by their thin flippers and blue-back coloration—can put on quite the show for onlookers, but there is something extra special about encountering these marine […]
As I headed out on a pelagic wildlife watching trip out of Sydney with Halicat I was really keen to see a new species of whale. Which wasn’t not too much to ask for, given that the only whale species I have seen are Humpbacks, Right whales and a pod of Pygmy Killer Whales. The […]
Minke whales have been discovered feasting furiously under Antarctic sea ice in a hunting strategy not seen before, scientists report. Tracked using digital tags, the whales gulped mouthfuls of krill nearly every 30 seconds-the fastest “lunge” rate ever observed in filter-feeding baleen whales, according to the new findings. The study, published in the August 13 […]
