Humpback whales are expert tool makers; blow and alter bubble nets to...

Humpback whales have fascinated human beings for a long time. New research has found that these massive creatures not only use tools but also make their own them. They even manipulate and alter them to catch more prey. Whales are known as intelligent marine animals who supposedly also have social structures.

Humpback whales create “bubble nets” to hunt, and as per the new study, they also modify them to attract more fish. “Many animals use tools to help them find food but very few actually create or modify the tools themselves,” Lars Bejder, an author of the study, said in the journal Royal Society Open Science.

The revelations were made after Bejder and his team conducted extensive studies on the humpback whales in the southeast (SE) region of Alaska. This region is a vital feeding hub for the marine animals. The scientists kept a close tab on solitary humpback whales that blow complex bubbles to catch krill.

They noticed that the whales use extraordinary techniques to alter these “bubble nets” to trap more prey. Humpback whales cleverly control the size, depth, and distance between these bubbles, for an efficient hunting process. Using this strategy, the whales can capture seven times more prey in a single dive without using extra energy.

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“This impressive behaviour places humpback whales among the rare group of animals that both make and use their own tools for hunting,” Dr Bejder said.

Why do Humpback whales need more food?

The bubble net strategy is exclusive to humpbacks who need to capture more prey to survive the winters. The amount of prey caught in summer decides their energy quota for the entire year as they then fall back into these Alaskan waters during colder months.

“We deployed non-invasive suction-cup tags on whales and flew drones over solitary bubble-netting humpback whales in southeast Alaska, collecting data on their underwater movements,” William Gough, another author of the study, said.

The study also sheds light on how enough calorie consumption lets migrating humpback whales traverse the Pacific Ocean. However, since the waters have been warming up due to climate change, their prey is falling in number, leading to the stranding events that are often reported.