Humpback whales intervene in killer whale hunt
A BBC/National Geographic film crew have recorded rare footage of humpback whales intervening in a killer whale hunt.
Gray whales migrating along the coast of California, US are often targeted by orcas.One mother and calf's journey was being filmed for the BBC series Planet Earth Live when the third party became involved in the drama.Onlookers suggest they were deliberately disrupting the hunt.Working from a whale-watching boat from Monterey Bay Whale Watch, the team set up to film in an area known for sightings of gray whales.Every year female gray whales travel north from the birthing waters off the coast of Mexico to the nutrient rich waters of the Bering Sea with their calves.Along the route, they are targeted by orcas, which co-ordinate their attacks - aiming to separate the defenceless young from their mothers.Using a camera mounted on the boat, Ms Bromley told BBC Nature: "we saw a lot of grey shapes in the water and quickly realised they were humpbacks."
According to the crew the additional whales were not just observers of the hunt but were actively involved.
Shortly after the crew arrived the orca successfully caught their prey. The mother whale fled the scene but the humpbacks remained.After the attack, two humpback whales moved into the area where the calf was last seen alive. They continued to make trumpeting calls, rolled in the water and slashed their tails aggressively at killer whales that came near.According to Mrs Schulman-Janiger the whole encounter lasted seven hours.
"An extraordinary number of humpback whales had appeared "overnight", feeding within a five mile area: about 100 humpback whales - converging on an abundance of krill that had grown concentrated after two days of very strong winds," she explained."The whales [we watched] should have been off feeding: instead, they deliberately stayed in our area, loudly announcing their presence."The researchers have sent photographs of the humpback whales to a research centre for identification against the North Pacific humpback whale catalogue."Female humpback whales would be expected to react much more strongly to the protection of a youngster," said Mrs Schulman-Janiger."This was not a curious approach by these humpback whales: they seemed truly distressed
