Nature » whales

Fellowship of the Whales: Video: Full Episode

tanner vea — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 15:30:26 +0000

Follow a baby humpback whale as she travels from her birthplace in Hawaii, to feeding grounds off Alaska’s coast. Escorted by her mother, this newborn will learn many things along the way. And when the pair returns to Hawaii, this yearling will be ready to take her place in her own community of whales.

(View full post to see video)

This program premiered November 15, 2009.

Fellowship of the Whales: Video: Cooperative Feeding

tanner vea — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 14:53:48 +0000

Humpback whales form teams for cooperative feeding. One whale blows a ring of bubbles to corral the herring. Another whale gives a deep, long feeding call. Finally, each whale takes a giant mouthful of fish and water.

Fellowship of the Whales: Video: Humpback Males Fight

tanner vea — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 18:48:02 +0000

Humpback whales congregate in the waters off Hawaii not only to give birth, but also to mate. This female humpback releases pheromones into the water, indicating that she’s ready to mate. A fight soon breaks out among the humpback bulls that are vying to be her escort.

Fellowship of the Whales: Introduction

tanner vea — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 20:23:50 +0000

In Hawaii, where new land is born as volcanic rock, another birth takes place. A baby humpback enters the world and joins the 3,000 or more whales that congregate in the warm waters off Hawaii each winter to mate and give birth. This is the story of her first year of life. Over twelve months she will learn many skills from her mother, and eventually they will make the several-thousand-mile journey together to Alaska’s southeast coast.

Humpbacks travel between Hawaii and Alaska every year, guided by their internal compass. The krill-rich waters of Alaska’s Alexander Archipelago are the whales’ summer feeding grounds, an environment very different from the calving grounds they have left behind in Hawaii. Here, more than the water temperature changes, the behavior of the whales changes, as well. While fiercely competitive in the breeding season in Hawaii, fighting for mates and protecting young, the opposite is true in Alaska. Whales cooperate, working in teams to gather food in the most efficient way possible. When the summer ends and the food is gone, mother and baby will head back to Hawaii again.

The young humpback calf has only a year to learn the subtleties of whale society before she is left by her mother to continue her education on her own, learning from observation and experience. It’s an incredible journey between two strikingly different environments that reveals the true complexity of the fellowship of the whales.

NATURE’s Fellowship of the Whales premieres Sunday, November 15 at 8pm (check local listings).

Humpback Whales: Introduction

admin — Sat, 03 Nov 2001 19:25:52 +0000

NATURE’s Humpback Whales follows these migrating marine mammals and presents their unique singing and hunting habits.

Graceful and magnificent, humpback whales inspire awe in young and old alike. These marine mammals travel great distances to take advantage of the best breeding grounds and feeding spots. North Pacific humpbacks, for example, mate and give birth in Hawaii and then travel to Alaska each summer to feed.

These gentle giants are famous for their singing abilities — belting out seductive ballads to attract mates or to challenge other would-be suitors. But they also have other talents. Their unique hunting skill, called bubblenet feeding, involves a group of humpbacks working together to capture schools of herring. Each whale has a particular role in the process: One whale swims in a circle while blowing bubbles under a school of herring. When the bubbles rise, the school of herring can not escape and form into a tight ball in the center. Other whales vocalize — grunting or screaming — to scare the herring to the surface. The whales then rise with their mouths wide open to capture large amounts of fish.

Trek across the oceans with these astounding creatures and discover more revealing details about their wonder-filled, watery ways.

Online content for Humpback Whales was originally posted January 2000.

Humpback Whales: Additional Web and Print Resources

admin — Sat, 03 Nov 2001 19:23:07 +0000

Web Sites

Oregon State University Marine Mammal Program
http://hmsc.orst.edu/groups/marinemammal/Index.html
The world’s leading authority in satellite-monitored radio tagging of large whales. The group was responsible for much of the tagging covered on HUMPBACK WHALES.

Sea Shepherd Conservation Society
http://www.seashepherd.org/
Organization dedicated to protecting marine wildlife species.

The Oceania Project
http://www.oceania.org.au/hpstuff/overview.html
Web site featuring information about whales and dolphins, maintained by Wally and Trish Franklin.

Humpback Whale
http://www.acsonline.org/factpack/humpback.htm
Facts and figures from the American Cetacean Society.

Virtual Whales
http://www.aiinc.ca/demos/whale.html
How to find out the species of a whale that you’ve just seen.

Whale Songs
http://www.abc.net.au/oceans/whale/song.htm
Songs recorded by Michael Noad of the Australian Marine Mammal Research Centre at Sydney University.

Whales, Dolphins, and Porpoises (Order Cetacea)
http://nmml.afsc.noaa.gov/education/cetaceans/cetacea.htm
The tale of the whole whale family, from the U.S. National Marine Mammal Laboratory.

Cetacea
http://www.cetacea.org/
Everything you wanted to know about whales and more.

Books

Carwardine, Mark. WHALES, DOLPHINS AND PORPOISES. New York: Checkmark Books, 1999.

Connor, Richard C. THE LIVES OF WHALES AND DOLPHINS: FROM THE AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY. New York: Henry Holt, 1996.

Frahm, Randy. THE HUMPBACK WHALE (WILDLIFE OF NORTH AMERICA). New York: Capstone Press, 1998.

Oceanic Society Expeditions. FIELD GUIDE TO THE HUMPBACK WHALE (SASQUATCH FIELD GUIDE). San Francisco: Sasquatch Books, 1993.

Payne, Roger. AMONG WHALES. New York: Delta, 1996.

Woong, Adam. THE WHALE. San Diego: Lucent Books, 1998.