August 10, 2016 by Bob
Yirka
A team of researchers led by
Robert Pitman, a marine ecologist with NOOA Fisheries' Southwest Fisheries
Science Center, has found evidence that suggests humpback whales may engage in
altruistic behavior during encounters with killer whales attacking other marine
species. In a paper available on the open access site Marine Mammal
Science, the team describes their analysis of humpback whale encounters with
killer whales and why they believe it is possible the whales are intentionally
helping other creatures to escape certain death by orcas.
The research began, the team
notes, when Pitman observed a humpback whale come
to the rescue of a seal after a pod of killer whales had knocked it off an ice
floe back in 2009. Also, another team member had witnessed a group of humpback
whales driving off a pod of killer whales that had killed a grey whale pup—they
surrounded it and prevented the orcas from eating it for several hours. Such
incidents prompted the group to look a little deeper—they conducted searches of
both published and unpublished papers detailing humpback observations and
discovered among them 115 incidents of humpback whales rescuing other creatures
from orca attacks. They noted that just 11 of the incidents involved rescuing
humpback whale calves—the rest involved rescuing a variety of other marine
creatures such as sea lions, gray whales, sunfish and harbor seals.
The researchers found that many
of the humpback whales that engaged in rescue attempts had scars on their
bodies, indicating that they were survivors of orca attacks in their youth—it
seemed plausible that they were simply responding to an unpleasant memory.
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