Whales Talk on Thin Ice -Who Listens?

Image: Photographer Rita Kluge

“The sound travels through the water for miles, through your body and into your soul,” Rita Kluge -photographer told Wired on December 5. “I got goosebumps. It’s something I’ll never forget for my whole life.”

Despite not knowing the ocean at all until the age of 18 Kluge the photographer from Neustadt Germany has spent time over the years with more than 1 thousand Whales in the South Pacific. “When a whale looks right into your eye, you feel serene,” she says...

Researchers of the University of Queensland have also been spending serious time with Whales in big numbers. The team studied 94 different groups of Humpback Whales on migration pathway South along the Queensland coast Australia in 2010 and 2011. The data they gathered then resulted in a breakthrough paper.

The research of the group was published in Marine Mammal Science and picked up by International Press on the first days of December. The study assures to have broken the mystery of Whale splashing, surface breaching and slapping, ending once and for all the debate on the issue.

Until now scientists agreed that Whales used these behaviours to communicate but it was just a theory there was  no solid scientific study which proved this Whale behaviour. Given that Whales are rich in vocalization potential -songs and bioacoustic calls some scientists questioned why would they require additional forms of communication. Researchers answered that and other questions.

The study of the Researchers from the University of Queensland discovered that slapping and splashing messages can travel in ocean waters for over 2 miles in acoustic waves. “Whales engage in this behaviour as a form of communicating with their peers,” they assured.

“By slamming their bodies into the water, humpback whales have been found to communicate with groups of whales as far as 4 kilometers away,” Daily Mail -just one of the International Media which covered the news reported.

But it is not all good talk for Whales today -even when most are protected under International Ocean Laws...

The National Geographic Explorer and Oregon State University Researcher Ari Friedlaender has stumbled upon a serious situation down and under the thin ice of Cierva Cove, Antarctica.

National Geographic described Friedlaender observation as “disaster”. The researcher assures that the Antarctic Minke -specie that depends on ice for its survival is dropping population rates at alarming levels.

Friedlaender observed populations of Humpback Whales in Antarctica increasing in numbers while Mink species could be dropping as much as 80%. The reason? Ice loss and conservation.

“It's well known that humpback whales are multiplying in the waters around Antarctica as they recover from decades of whaling that finally ended around 1970,when Soviet factory ships ended their illegal harvests,” National Geographic reported briefly on the long history of Humpback Whales today thriving and protected strongly by Anti-Whaling legislation.

But there is another reason why Humpback Whales are doing so well.  “Sea ice has shrunk: Since 1980, the average duration of winter sea ice has shortened from around seven months to just four. On one hand, the melting has given humpback whales, which prefer open water, more room to find food. But it may spell disaster for the Antarctic minke, a species that depends on ice for its survival,” National Geographic explains.

Nat Geo Explorer Friedlaender observed in 2009 the largest gathering of humpback whales ever documented. It consisted of a group of over 300 whales congregated in a single bay to feed on krill. 2 million tons of these tiny whiskered crustaceans were estimated.

The researcher working on the ice and cold waters of Antarctica warned that the situation is alarming for Minkes; “there isn't even enough information about them to determine their conservation status, how quickly their numbers are falling, or whether they are simply retreating into smaller areas of ocean”.

Average annual temperatures on the western side of the Peninsula have warmed by 4 or 5 degrees Fahrenheit since 1950, and the winters have warmed an astonishing 8 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit -“over five times faster than the global average,” according to Douglas Martinson, an oceanographer at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in New York.

“There are way fewer minke whales in this area than you would expect, and enormous numbers of humpback whales. It’s almost staggering.”

Whale Population spread throughout the Globe so how will these issues impact the group is still unknown. In Australia Queensland Researchers were inspired by Whales jumping out of the water -behaviour known as surface breaching.

“It’s something all whale-watchers yearn to see. The sight of whales breaking the surface and slapping their fins on the water is a true spectacle – but the animals don’t do it just for show,” New Scientist reported.

Ailbhe Kavanagh was one of the Scientists involved in the Queensland University study. Kavanagh explained their findings to the press.

The animals were significantly more likely to breach when the nearest other whale group was more than 4 kilometres away, suggesting that the body-slapping sound of breaching was used to signal to distant groups.In contrast, repetitive tail and pectoral-fin slapping appeared to be for close-range communication. There was a sudden increase in this behaviour just before new whales joined or the group split up.

“It is vital for migrating whales to conserve energy because they do not eat during this time. The fact that these slapping actions were so regular and vigorous was evidence of their importance,” Kavanagh said.

But why would Humpback Whales prefer to waste so much energy in slapping and breaching surface with massive jumps out of the water when they are known as one of the most vocals creatures of the Ocean.

The study found that breaching and pectoral-fin slapping increased when the wind picked up, possibly because vocal sounds became less audible. “Although surface-active behaviours only give very simple information like location, it’s possible that a succession of these surface sounds could convey a little more information,” Joshua Smith at Murdoch University in Perth, Western Australia told New Scientist.

Male and female humpback whales of all ages exhibit breaching and slapping behaviour during migration, breeding and feeding – suggesting they play a key role in communication, Smith says.

In Cierva Cove, Antarctica Ari Friedlaender is also on the lookout for Whales breaching the surface but he has another thing in mind besides splashing sounds. Friedlaender waits in that cold ocean waters with snow falling all over and massive pieces of ice floating drifting for a Whale to breach to go deep into its life -gain insight into a World no human can penetrate.

“He holds a rifle, with two metal harpoons protruding from its muzzle. His gaze is fixed a few feet ahead, where something big stirs just beneath the surface. A jet of mist suddenly erupts from the water. The humpback whale exhales with a grunt, emitting a putrid whiff of stomach acid and decay. The Oregon State University marine ecologist brings the rifle to his shoulder and pulls the trigger. The dart flies into the animal's dorsal fin just as it sinks beneath the waves,” National Geographic reports.

Friedlaender is also out for scientific evidence. Using track and trace GPS technology he is studying Antarctica's two most common whale species, the Humpback and the Antarctic Minke.

Friedlaender registered in the 2000s that Minke accounted for up to 40 % of the whales that he saw along the Antarctic Peninsula and today they account for about 5 %.

In Maui researchers have discovered that whether splashing or singing on vocalizing Whale´s sounds could be travelling beyond what we originally thought. Whales could be actually sensing sounds they make at longer distances. Underwater sound waves travel a certain span of length while particle motion waves generated by acoustic waves travel even a further distance. Special technology is required to measure particle motion. Particle motion which can be sensed by a wide range of ocean organisms is changing the sector and conceptions of Bioacoustics.

The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution WHOI recently published a study on particle motion and whales in the Journal Biology Letters. WHOI biologist Dr Aran Mooney studied particle motion effects in a group of humpback whales off the coast of the Hawaiian island of Maui.

WHOI researchers discovered that the particle motion they measured from the Whale songs of Maui travelled far further than expected.

“We didn't expect particle motion to be projected much at all - just a few metres away at most. But as we got progressively further away, the particle motion stayed loud and clear,” WHOI´s Dr Mooney kicked it.