Whale tales

[randy_byers]

So yesterday I finally made it to Nordstrom's to buy a suit. It ended up being an enormously painless experience, and it's a nice looking suit. I also bought some work clothes (i.e., dress shirts) at Macy's. After spending all that money, I needed lunch, so I went to the Big Time for soup, sandwich, and a pint of Trombipulator, and I watched the Mariners come from behind to win their game against Cincinnati despite two home runs by the returning prodigal, Ken Griffey Jr.

Around about the eighth inning, Wolfgang came in, and we ended up chatting about his upcoming trip to the Bering Straits, where he will be performing a number of tests and observations over the course of two months on a 60-foot boat. Wolfgang is a marine biologist, amongst other things, and it's always fascinating to hear what he's up to. One of the the things he's going to study this time is some pretty incredible behavior by sperm whales. The bulls head up to the Bering Straits to feed during the summer, and lately they've learned (and are teaching each other) how to strip fish off the long lines of fishing boats. They literally take the line in their mouths as it's being winched in, and they pull the fish off as they slide through.

"A lot of times the only thing left on the line is a bunch of fish lips dangling from the hooks," Wolfgang said.

But the incredible thing is that the whales apparently know which boats are the most successful and will specifically seek out those boats. What's utterly mind-blowing is that they they know which captains are most successful and will follow specific captains when they switch to a new boat. Wolfgang says that the best theory for understanding this is that the best (most successful) captains have a way of gunning the engines in a certain pattern when the line is being winched in so that the boat stays on a course that allows the line to feed in straight. They think the whales can detect the pattern of engine revs and know which ones are associated with the best captains. They also think that the old bulls are teaching the younger ones how to recognize these patterns. What Wolfgang will be studying this summer is ways that they can disguise the pattern of engine noises to fool the whales, because otherwise the best captains are losing a lot of money. As in hundreds of thousands of dollars.

He said that sometimes the whales will come up next to the boat ("like a freight car rising from the depths") and stick their heads out of the water in order to peer over the side.

"They're very curious," he said. "They want to see what we're up to. You can see their eyeball moving around, checking everything out."

Sometimes they blow their wet, stinky breath over the whole boat and everyone in it. Wolfgang says he's not sure what that's all about. I figured it was a big joke, and that the whale probably went back to his buddies to have a good laugh about it.

"Ha, ha! We ate all your fish, and all you got was the spew from my crusty blowhole. And that ain't no fluke!"

Comments

Blow their wet stinky breath over the boat

[ceemage.livejournal.com]

My wife has suggested that it could be a thank-you message of some sort - "So long, and thanks for all the fish."

Re: Blow their wet stinky breath over the boat

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

Ouch! Indeed.

[gerisullivan.livejournal.com]

That is so cool! For the fish, anyway. The fisherman have cause for complaint. Until the whales start paying them more than the humans, that is.

I am especially impressed that the whales have figured out how to identify the captains (not just the boats) with the largest hauls.

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that detail about the whales following specific captains was the one that caused my jaw to be introduced to the floor.

[ron-drummond.livejournal.com]

Great retelling! I really miss running into Wolfgang like that -- thanks for the profoundly characeristic (yet one of a kind) tale. I hope you gave him my regards!

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

I certainly will next time I see him. He says he's still thinking of moving to Uruguay too. That would make it much harder for any of us to run into him at the pub!

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

They're like bears, who do similar things (in their own environment, of course). Large mammal scavenger wild ecology. This is new.

Of course it could be a result of decreasing populations of wild fish for the whales to eat. Otherwise they'd hardly need to bother with this.

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

That's an interesting question/thought. It could be that it's easier to let somebody else catch the fish for you, even for a whale, but that a diminished fish population is what drove them to try something new. (One of the other things Wolfgang is studying on this trip is pH and oxygen levels in the strait. A small change in pH can apparently wipe out a lot of ocean life. Fascinating sensor devices they're using, too, which are implanted in halibut, collect data for a year, then detach themselves, surface, and send the data to a satellite.)