Whales make epic migrations, shock scientists

Scientists say a humpback whale has made one of many longest and most uncommon migrations ever recorded, probably pushed by local weather change.

It was noticed within the Pacific Ocean off Colombia in 2017, then appeared a number of years later within the Indian Ocean close to Zanzibar – at the least 13,000 km away.

Specialists consider this epic journey could possibly be an odyssey to deplete meals shares for local weather change or maybe to discover a mate.

Ekaterina Kalashnikova of the Tanzania Cetacean Program mentioned the feat was “actually spectacular and strange even for this extremely migratory species”.

The picture beneath reveals the identical whale captured in 2022 off the coast of Zanzibar.

Dr Kalashnikova mentioned it was doubtless the longest distance a humpback whale had ever traveled.

Humpback whales stay in all oceans all over the world. They journey lengthy distances every year and have one of many longest migrations of any mammal, swimming from heat water breeding grounds to cooler water feeding grounds.

However this male’s journey was much more spectacular, involving two distant breeding grounds.

One idea is that local weather change is altering the abundance of small shrimp-like krill humpback whales, forcing them to journey additional in quest of meals.

Alternatively, whales could also be looking for new breeding grounds as populations rebound by way of international conservation efforts.

“Whereas the precise causes are unknown, drivers might embody international modifications in local weather, excessive environmental occasions (that are extra frequent nowadays), and evolutionary mechanisms of species,” mentioned Dr Kalashnikova.

The wandering male was amongst a bunch of humpbacks photographed from a analysis vessel off the Pacific coast of Colombia in 2013.

He was then recognized in an identical space in 2017 – and off Zanzibar in 2022.

The viewpoints are separated by a great-circle distance of 13,046 kilometers — the minimal distance for the route taken by the whale, scientists say, although it’s more likely to be a lot better.

For the reason that Earth is a sphere, the shortest path between two factors is represented by the nice circle distance, which corresponds to an arc connecting two factors on a sphere.

The paper’s findings are based mostly on thousands and thousands of whale photographs submitted by researchers, whale watchers and members of the general public to the citizen science web site, happywhale.com.

The database makes use of synthetic intelligence to match the person shapes and patterns of humpback whale tails, or flukes, thus mapping their actions across the globe.

The analysis is printed within the journal, Royal Society Open Science.

Study extra about humpback whales in The Secret of the Giants of Antarctica On BBC iPlayer.