SIO444: Climate Change Made "the Blob." It Killed Tons of Marine Life

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:16 Thomas: And welcome to Serious Inquiries Only. This is episode 444. Wow, 444, cool. Your host Thomas Smith and I got a fun one for you. You might remember a while ago we had Dr. Heidi Pearson on to talk about a really interesting study on whales, and she was just such a delight, one of those people who loves what she does, and what she, she does is, I just feel like that love enthusiasm was so infectious when we spoke to Heidi.

So we've been looking for another excuse to speak to Dr. Heidi Pearson. We've got a good one. Got another study recently published. She is one, one of 75 contributors. This was a very large scientific undertaking. She and others took a look at the humpback whale population and how it really suffered through this heat wave. It's another story of climate change and yet another way that it's going to devastate us and the planet.

But also cause for optimism in this, and I can't wait to speak to her about it. Not only that, there were some other stories in the news that we thought would be a perfect chance to talk about, some fun ones. One, there's another recent study, Heidi wasn't directly involved with, but about menopause, the evolution of menopause in whales. Single a orca took on a great white shark, which is crazy. Finally, is there a homosexual humpback whale couple?

A special place in my heart for gay animal couples in nature. Like, I don't know why that is. It's just the cutest thing. And so, did that happen with humpback whales? There's a, there's that says as much, so can't wait to speak to her about that. That's after this break, which, of course, you can avoid on patreon.com/seriouspod. And you can get the warm, fuzzy feeling of supporting the show, making it happen, supporting science and science communication and not having to hear ads.

So all great reasons to be on patreon dot com slash serious, but thank you so much to our supporters. All right, let's get on over to Dr. Heidi Pearson. Heidi Pearson, welcome back to the show.

0:02:13 Heidi: You so much. Happy to be here again.

0:02:15 Thomas: It was so fun talking to you last time. I think last time the whales were involved in some class warfare, although that wasn't the topic you're there to talk about. It was hard to resist. Are they still attacking boats?

0:02:24 Heidi: Yes, I believe they are, but I think the, intensity tends to wax and wane, but I they're still at it. But we'll see, you know, as I said before, it's likely this behavior will just die out at some point.

0:02:34 Thomas: Yeah, I haven't put out a manifesto or or anything. We All We right. Well, we'll keep an eye on that. But Why don't you tell us about this new study that you recently published?

0:02:43 Heidi: Right. Sure. Well, thanks for asking. So this was a study called the North Pacific Humpback Whale Research Collective, which is a big way of saying everyone that studies humpback whales in the North Pacific. And there were 75 co -authors on this paper. So I was one of 75. I played a small role in this larger effort.

0:03:11 Thomas: Why?

0:03:11 Heidi: And what we did is we contributed our data, our photo ID data. So when we go out and study humpback whales, a main method is we take photos of their flukes or their tails. And their tails are individually distinctive, like a human fingerprint. And so just by taking images of whales through time, we individuals in an area, between areas, we can get population estimates.

And so what this paper did is just based on these photographic images from researchers across the North Pacific, all the data were pooled and then some complex modeling was done to estimate the population of humpback whales in the North Pacific. And the cool thing is that we got a really good population estimate. And it showed that from the the early 2000s, North Pacific humpback whales were doing quite well. You know, they recovering from large -scale commercial whaling, and the population was rebounding and increasing.

And then we hit the period of the mid -2010s, around 2015 or so, and we start to see a drop in the population. And what that was due to was the North Pacific marine heat wave, or commonly called the blob. So we had this big mass of warm water all throughout the North Pacific, and it took a toll on the entire ocean ecosystem from phytoplankton, the tiny marine plants that sustain the food web, all the way up to humpback whales. And that was an unexpected unexpected finding.

0:04:49 Thomas: It called the blob, huh?

0:04:51 Heidi: That was a common term given to it in the media because it's like this blob of water mass. And I guess, you know, it was kind of scary because you don't want to have super warm water in the ocean. Yeah.

0:04:57 Thomas: Yeah. And Is this just a way weather is weird based on the climate changing, you know, just some, is it that kind of thing, or was there some specific reason for it? Wow.

0:05:11 Heidi: A marine heat wave, which is a period of unusually warm water. And yes, it was caused by climate change.

0:05:19 Thomas: So what kind of effects does that have? Jeez.

0:05:22 Heidi: It can cause die -offs of fish. It can cause less productive oceans. So less phytoplankton or, you know, fewer plants in the ocean thriving. Massive die -off of marine birds. I mean, there were like millions of dead marine birds found washed up on the shore all along the North Pacific.

0:05:39 Thomas: What's The degree difference we're talking here, like,

0:05:45 Heidi: I want to say about three to six degrees, which, is a lot, you know, it takes a lot for the ocean to warm up because it's such a huge body of water. And so it ocean is very sensitive to even even relatively small degrees of warming.

0:05:51 Thomas: No.

0:06:02 Thomas: Kidding? Yeah, it's like, that is a ton, that was a a lot more than I was expecting it was going to be. But it still is pretty remarkable that that causes that much devastation. I mean, I guess everything is just like very fine tuned, kind, the environment it lives in. And just even those small changes. I think of humans, it's like, oh, I could swim in a freezing pool or I could go in a hot tub. You know, I feel fine, but it's not really the same thing.

0:06:23 Heidi: Absolutely. Well, that's a good point because as humans, we can move in and out of of, those environments you mentioned, but animals that's, they have no choice. Marine life, they Can't escape, you know, or they could swim a long distance, but some animals just aren't capable of that. So it, does it really disrupt their lives likely

0:06:35 Thomas: Right. And And so the birds, did they die because of the fish dying or is there another reason that they can't handle the warm water.

0:06:45 Heidi: Due to the fish dying. Yep.

0:06:49 Thomas: That's crazy. That. I That was mid 2010s.

0:06:51 Heidi: Was officially the heat wave was from 2014 to 2016. when we this saw warm water mass. But then in humpback whales, anyway, we saw effects up until about 2018 or so.

0:07:04 Thomas: So you were researching kind of how the, how the population bouncing back or, not.

0:07:08 Heidi: Right, right. And so with this study, we sought out to with this big group of researchers, we sought out to get a population estimate and look at how the population had changed through time. And And then the detection of this drop in whale abundance that coincided with the marine heat wave was actually an unexpected finding.

0:07:28 Thomas: Oh, the drop, uh, it was unexpected to find a drop because of the heat wave. Oh.

0:07:33 Heidi: Right. Right. And so we, yeah, we didn't know that the marine heat wave would have had that big of effect on humpback whales. We notice, you know, in the field at the time that whales were thinner because they weren't getting enough food. We had fewer calves being born, but what we didn't realize was the fact that that heat wave actually had on mortality. I mean, a lot of whales died during the heat wave.

0:07:33 Thomas: Geez.

0:08:00 Thomas: And is that just same thing where it's like kind of up the food chain, so to speak, like not as much to eat, or did the, is it something the whales themselves can't handle, the temperature difference?

0:08:10 Heidi: Was most likely due to not getting enough to eat. So, you know, there was a decline in fish, which for females, it, you Know, if they aren't of good enough condition, they're not going to be able to reproduce, you Now, become pregnant, pregnant, and then nurse, and that, that to the, lack of, young of being born. And then some animal just starved to death because I didn't get enough food.

0:08:15 Thomas: Yeah.

0:08:33 Thomas: That sucks. I like that.

0:08:34 Heidi: I know it's, you know, it's not happy story, but I will say, so this, this paper that we published, it population through 2021, 2022 or so. And so after that heat wave, then we start to see an uptick again of the whale, the humpback whale population. So it shows in some respect, the resiliency of these animals. They took a big hit due to the heat wave, but then once the ecosystem leveled out again, it wasn't so warm, then they, their numbers recovered. And so kind of the take home message is, is that nature is, ist resilient. If we protect it, these animals can come back. There,

0:08:34 Thomas: Yeah.

0:09:16 Thomas: Well, that's good. I worry going forward about more heat waves, though. Are you, have some like ocean weather channel that you guys do to you predict how that's gonna go, or is it just unpredictable? Sure.

0:09:25 Heidi: There are some folks that can predict heat waves and that's not within my direct sphere, but I know that there are Some models and I do think heat waves can be predicted. And unfortunately, with climate change continuing, we are expected to see more frequent heat waves occurring in the marine environment.

0:09:30 Thomas: Oh.

0:09:47 Thomas: Okay, that was uh, a long, how long in the, the kind of, in the making was that? That sounds like it covered a long period of time. What was it like being a part of that?

0:09:55 Heidi: Oh, it was a really great collaboration. And it just speaks to the power of people working together. We can really discover great things. And I think this collaboration started around 2017 or so. And it was spearheaded by a scientist named Ted Cheeseman who founded this called Happy Whale, happywhale .com. And it's really cool because it allows researchers and citizen scientists. So anyone that takes a photo of that humpback whale tail can upload that photo to the the website and get the ID, get the name of that whale.

0:10:19 Thomas: Oh. Wow.

0:10:37 Thomas: That's Really cool. I just pulled it up, that's great.

0:10:38 Heidi: Yeah. Oh, cool. Happywhale .com. And then you contract your whale, your, you know, in quotes, whale across the ocean. And you know so I've tracked a lot of the whales I study here in Juneau. I have tracked them down in Hawaii or Mexico during the breeding season.

0:10:56 Thomas: Wow. That's so cool.

0:10:57 Heidi: Yeah yeah. And so So this Happy Whale platform was used to manage and analyze all of these photos that were coming in from researchers. And so part of this project was getting this Happy whale platform off the ground. And, you know, there's this AI algorithm, kind of like facial recognition, you know like Facebook, where we can almost instantly now recognize a whale's fluke and know its name, which is just amazing.

0:10:58 Thomas: Mm. -hmm. Oh.

0:11:29 Thomas: Is that their, like, fingerprint kind of thing? Like, that's sort of the equivalent there.

0:11:33 Heidi: Exactly. Each whale has a unique pigmentation pattern on its tail.

0:11:34 Thomas: Wow. Yeah, I never would have known that just by looking at it casually, but yeah, if you focus in, it's like there is, yeah, there's an interesting pattern there. Yeah, oh I see some of them, their mug shots are coming up too. That must be embarrassing, but well, no, that is really cool to be able to track the whales like that. I don't know that I'll ever, you know, get a good picture of a whale, but if I do, I will definitely remember this and I will try to try to learn its name, get on a first name basis.

0:12:00 Heidi: Yes. Absolutely.

0:12:02 Thomas: That's really cool. Yeah.

0:12:04 Heidi: Yeah, and I think, you know, it does so much for really to be able to recognize an individual animal. You know, you kind of form a bond with it, and then that leads into the more you know the more, you can protect them and work work for their conservation. So I think there's a lot of good outcomes just by getting to know, you know, these individual whales.

0:12:10 Thomas: Oh. Yeah. If I learn a whale's name, I'm never gonna put anything into the environment again, you know what I mean? Like, that's gonna, I'm gonna feel bad. I feel like that whale is gonna show up at my door one day, like, "Hey, you, uh, you littered the other day." Yeah, that's, we Had something here. Yeah. No.

0:12:36 Heidi: Yep. Right, right, right.

0:12:39 Thomas: That's very cool. So, and anyone can do that, you're saying? Like anyone, just if they take a picture of any whale anywhere, they could try to match it to the whale ID here.

0:12:48 Heidi: Yes, yes. So you can set up a free account. And right now it's mostly for humpback whales, but I do believe they have, Matching you platforms on Happy Whale for like sperm whales and killer whales. So they're trying to to broaden to other species. But the cool thing is humpback whales are found in nearly all of the world's oceans.

0:13:08 Thomas: Wow.

0:13:08 Heidi: And they are the most commonly seen whale on whale watches. So if you go on a whale watch, there's a high chance you're going to be seeing humpback whales.

0:13:17 Thomas: But there's few enough of them that like website can track most all of them. Like what kind of numbers are we talking?

0:13:24 Heidi: Yeah, that's a great question. So, if we're looking at the North Pacific humpback whale, the population is between 25 and 30,000. And as our paper revealed, we, know photographically most of those whales that are alive today, which is pretty cool. And so it depends on, on human presence and research effort. A lot of the humpback whales on the East coast of the U.S. are known. And, and then going down from the breeding ground. So you have the the North Atlantic down to the Caribbean, you know, North Pacific here down to Mexico and Hawaii. And then you have other hotspots of activity like Australia, even the Antarctic with more cruises going down there. So it is biased towards, you Know, where the people are and where the research is and where The Whale Watching is.

0:14:14 Thomas: Right. That makes sense. Plus there's going to be the whale that like never got a cell phone and doesn't have any social media. So you're not going to able to track its habits that way. And those privacy, the Ron Swanson of whales. What? What's going on in the world of whales? Um, let's see, where should we start? There was, uh, a lone orca took on great white sharks, and that's not normal. Tell us about that, holy

0:14:25 Heidi: Yes. Yes, we yes. A killer whale that was observed to successfully hunt and kill a great white shark off South Africa.

0:14:48 Thomas: Crap. Is that like just normal? Do

0:14:51 Heidi: Mean, I it's normal for killer whales to hunt and kill all types of prey. They have been known to kill great white sharks before, but the unusual thing about this occurrence was that it was a single killer whale. You know, killer whales are very social. Usually they hunt in groups. They hunt with their pod members. But in this case, it was this single killer killer whale, a male that took down this great white shark,

0:15:17 Thomas: A badass. Ass is good or bad, I don't know. Maybe it's bad though if they should be socializing more. Too, too much internet. Okay.

0:15:23 Heidi: Well, you know, from the killer whales perspective, it's good. You know, it got a great a meal. And I think it just reminds us of the kind of the uniqueness of killer whales. And I talk about this with my students a lot as well. If you want to talk about like the king of the ocean, so to speak, I would say it's the killer whale because they can take down great white sharks, large whales. I mean, they could pretty much take down anything. And now with this study showed us is that even acting alone, they can take down some of the fiercest animals in the ocean.

0:15:26 Thomas: Wow. Wow.

0:15:58 Thomas: They might have misremembered. I was, I thought the whole killer whale thing was like a misnomer. I, you know, we named it that and then we're wrong or something, like the whole Iceland Greenland thing. Maybe I don't, I just, I thought it was something like that, but no, they're actually killers. It sounds like they're, they're fierce killers.

0:16:13 Heidi: Are, and their name actually comes from, they were originally named to be killers of whales because they, hunt, like I said, you know, they Can take down a a minke whale, humpback whale, other large species. And then through time, it got shortened to killer whales. But it's important to note that while they are fierce predators to other ocean species, there has never been a single documented attack of a killer whale on a human in the wild.

0:16:42 Thomas: Really?

0:16:42 Heidi: So we should not have any reason to fear them. No.

0:16:46 Thomas: Wow. Are we just, we're just too measly for them? They like not even worth the calories to eat our tiny bodies?

0:16:52 Heidi: Be. It It could be. If only we could ask them. Yes. So, yeah, we probably don't want to cross that

0:16:54 Thomas: Well, yeah, now I feel left out. Like maybe we could ask them, like, is there something wrong with me? Is there something I can do to be more edible or no? That's true. Well, it's all taken care of.

0:17:04 Heidi: Bridge. It's pretty good where it's at, you know, right now.

0:17:08 Thomas: That's crazy. I they in the same areas that, I you just that is kind of curious in all of, know, I recorded history, I guess that that's never happened. Is do you think that is? I'm curious. Is.

0:17:18 Heidi: Thing that comes to mind is that killer whales, they are so intelligent. And I've studied a variety of animals from primates to whales and other marine mammals. And looking at killer whales they really really are the epitome of intelligence in an animal. And I think they I think they can recognize other maybe intelligent species. Maybe they can recognise that we are not harmful to them. I mean, there is the caveat of the of the killer whales off Washington.

0:17:44 Thomas: Hmm. No one tell them about climate change, please. No, they find out they're going to be pissed. Oh my God.

0:17:52 Heidi: Right. Right? Yeah. But we you have nothing to to fear from, killer whales as humans who, you know, you never know.

0:17:58 Thomas: Yeah. Or they're so smart, they destroy the evidence. That could be it too. We'll jump on the case. On the whale list here, on our whale agenda, I menopause don't in whales, there's a study of can you tell us about that?

0:18:13 Heidi: It was a really cool study that came out in Nature relatively recently, and it discussed the presence of menopauses in different whale species and the potential reasons for that. And one of the cool things about the a study is that it that, well, a couple of things. One, menopause is relatively rare amongst all animals. So of course, humans have menopause, great apes have menopause, but the group of animals where menopause is most common is actually in whales, which this study revealed.

0:18:51 Thomas: Wow, that's interesting.

0:18:53 Heidi: Yeah, it

0:18:54 Thomas: Yeah, what's going on there? Is it because of like, does lifespan have a bit to do with that? I'm trying to think because it does seem a little just from an evolutionary perspective.

0:19:03 Heidi: Does, right? So because it doesn't make sense if the goal of life, life from an evolutionary perspective is to reproduce and pass on your genes. Why would you still live without reproducing? But yes, so these animals that have menopause tend to have longer lifespans, but that's not the only determinant because whales that can live for very long periods of time, like blue whales or bowhead whales, we don't have evidence of menopaus in them. So that's not the only determinant. A big Determinant is the, the societies that these animals live in. So the whales that have, that are known currently to have menopause. So we have killer whales, pilot whales, belugas, and narwhals are the main ones. Live in tight family units. And so what this does is it enables a female to still have a so-called purpose after she stops reproducing because she can help take care of grandchildren and so on, younger individuals that have her genes, you know, in some way, she can still help to support them, even though she's not reproducing herself.

0:19:32 Thomas: Yeah, now happens in the whale species that don't have it? I mean, are they like fertile forever or is there some other thing that happens?

0:20:25 Heidi: Far as we know, they can continue to reproduce until they die. But a asterisk there though, is that for some of these whales, I think we just don't have enough data. These whales, some of them live the lifespan of a human, and it just takes a long time to study like an individual whale throughout its life to determine if and when it might stop reproducing. So my hunch is that we are going to start to uncover more examples of menopause as we continue long-term studies of these animals.

0:20:37 Thomas: Hmm. Right.

0:21:00 Thomas: What what else did this study show? Just that it was just kind of documenting that this happens or was there more to it?

0:21:06 Heidi: Right. It was documenting that it happened again with the emphasis on these whale species. And then it was, it considered different hypotheses for why menopausal should evolve. And the hypothesis that the paper kind honed in on as the most likely reason was this, like the grandmother mother hypothesis. So staying alive to invest your energy, not in reproduction, but to help in the survival of your descendants.

0:21:24 Thomas: Hmm. Oh, a whale grandma. That sounds that sounds delightful. Better. Cozy Whale grandmother's house, you know, dropping off the whale kids over there. Some knitting. My grandma, so fascinating though, um, okay, so Lydia is uh very curious to learn and I as well about um seems to be some like homosexual whale activity documented out there. And that's always so funny. There's always the cute like penguin couples. I feel like that's commonly documented.

0:21:37 Heidi: Yes.

0:21:59 Heidi: Well, this was such an exciting study for many reasons. And so the study was an observation of two humpback whales that are both known to be males. And they were actually observed with underwater footage mating. So one male had his penis in the other male. And I this is really exciting for a few reasons. One is that it just reaffirms the prevalence of homosexual behavior across cross -animal taxa.

0:22:34 Thomas: Yeah.

0:22:35 Heidi: I mean, it's actually pretty common. Then two, we still have never observed mating between a male and female humpback whale. I means, humpback whales, yes, yes.

0:22:42 Thomas: Wait, really? I did not know that. That's amazing. So the only mating that we have is homosexual, that we Have Evidence of is homosexual mating. That's fantastic. I'm actually now a heterosexual whale truther. I think they're are only gay. There's a... Prove me wrong. I'm sorry. Prove me wrong." Yeah.

0:22:52 Heidi: Yes, yes! It? Right, preview, I mean there you go. There's no empirical evidence for males and females actually mating.

0:23:06 Thomas: Yeah. I think we should go after the fundamentalists and say like, actually, everyone should be gay. Look at nature and look at the whales. We'll turn it back on them, you know?

0:23:17 Heidi: Or, you know, maybe the males and females just want their privacy and they and they go off where there's no one around. But yeah, so it's pretty, it's pretty cool. And, and, you know, we can we can surmise from this, this male male behavior, the, you know, the mating position and behavior between a male and a female, which which was pretty cool. I read that study and the day it came out, it came to me from several different directions. And then by the end of the day, I realized that one of the males in there, in that paper, the male that was being mated with, if I can say that, So like the male under the other whale actually is a whale I know from,

0:23:20 Thomas: Yeah, it could be. Yeah, sure.

0:23:59 Thomas: Oh, wow.

0:24:00 Heidi: Yeah, it's a whale I now.

0:24:00 Thomas: Was that awkward at all or... Sorry.

0:24:03 Heidi: Well, no, that's funny. The whale, his ID is 2557, and then his nickname is Bohemian. And he's a whale, I've photographed up here in Juneau, and we even took a biopsy sample from him to learn more about his stress and reproductive hormones. And the last time I documented him was in August, 2021, up here in Juneau. And this, this photograph, this event was described in Hawaii in January of 2022. And, then I have not seen Bohemian since 2021. 21. And we, always kind of wonder if it's a whale you usually see in the study area, you know what, what's going on with them? Are they just feeding someplace else this year? What's going on? One of the

0:24:05 Thomas: Do

0:24:53 Heidi: Things in this, yeah, well, I mean, it turns out, you know, Bohemian, we don't know, but, but this, Imagery though, it that that bohemian had a sustained, a pretty substantial injury to his, his jaw. And he also looked in not great body condition in those photos. He had kind of a pale skin color, which is an indication of not being so healthy. And so putting the pieces together, the fact that, you know, we haven't seen him on the breeding grounds. He was looking poorly six months after I saw him up here the last time, and going back to Happy Whale, he has not been seen on Happy Whale. We think he actually died. Yeah.

0:24:54 Thomas: They have a A secret life as a gay whale somewhere. Sorry. Yeah. Oh, that is so great. Oh, no.

0:25:42 Heidi: I, I know, so it's kind of bittersweet. A, you, it gives us more insight into his life, and at least we know, you know, maybe what happened. He sustained, it seems, seems like maybe it was a ship strike. That, yeah, yeah. So,

0:25:52 Thomas: Oh, wait, but how, what's the timing of this? I thought, so how this picture or was this documentation only recently kind of released or?

0:26:01 Heidi: Yeah, so we're kind of putting the pieces together, and so when we saw him here in Juneau in summer of 2021, we didn't pick up on any indication that he was in poor health or, you know, had suffered, been some, some kind of trauma. But granted, on the feeding grounds, we only see them at the surface. You know, we don't, the water isn't very clear, we don't get underwater footage. So, but he seemed fine. And then when down in the breeding grounds, about six months later, we get this good imagery showing a decline in body condition. So we're just kind of putting the pieces together, figure out what happened to him.

0:26:37 Thomas: Well, I was so invested in this whale. I'm, this, this article has just come out recently, somewhat recently. So, oh, it is from 2022. Ah, darn it, so photos are a little late, they, they were a little delayed in coming out, I suppose, but

0:26:50 Heidi: Yes, yes. Yeah. Cause it takes time. You know, know, this was published in a scientific paper and that whole process of review and publication takes time. Yeah. Yeah,

0:26:55 Thomas: Gotcha. Plus The censors have to take a look at it. No, um, that, that is so weird though. To, so this comes out and you're like, I know that whale, and then you, you find out this whale has passed away, possibly. Is that like, like not a hundred percent, or like likely?

0:27:12 Heidi: Pretty likely. I mean, we're always going to be looking for him, but the fact that he wasn't seen up here in 2022 or 2023, it of likely given the condition that he was in. But who knows, maybe he'll surprise us. But I'd say it's probably likely that he, he died.

0:27:34 Thomas: Shoot. What what about the partner? And then also, is this the kind of thing that's just speculated? I know we see all kinds of stuff in the animal kingdom. Is this like, just this homosexual activity that, you whales are partaking in, or is it thought that like, maybe they are, you that way? You know, I imagine there's got to be examples of all of that nature. I mean, I think there's been examples of like monogamous homosexual couples of might've been the penguins. I don't know. So is there any thought or speculation as to that? Or is it just like, here's what we know this, this happened.

0:27:38 Heidi: Yeah, well, a couple, couple of thoughts based on what I know of homosexual behavior and, and great apes and dolphins is mating, you know, even in humans, it's a social behavior, it helps to form and reinforce social bonds. And so, bottom you nose Dolphins, for example, are well known, you know, to have male -male copulation. In bonobo is a type of great ape. There's a lot of female -female mating behavior and all of that serves for social bonding. That's one reason. And then another reason could be mating practice.

0:28:37 Thomas: Yeah.

0:28:38 Heidi: I'm not sure if that would be the case for these two humpback whales. Bohemian, And I know with, with certain, yeah. And they, neither of them were juveniles, you know? So for me, it seems like it's, it's mostly, it was probably a social function.

0:28:41 Thomas: They look like seasoned pros.

0:28:52 Thomas: Still can't get over the fact that this is the only documented mating. That is, that how is that possible? I don't understand. They going on there, do they go down so deep in the ocean that we can't, we don't see it, or what? What is it? Hmm.

0:29:03 Heidi: It's perplexing. I mean, humpback whales are one of the most well -studied marine mammals, if not animals, period. You know, they're big, they be relatively coastal. Still. And a lot of people have spent a lot of time watching them. And don't I know, what, you what happens on these, these mating groups. And, and I was fortunate enough to witness one of these competitive wading groups. I was in Hawaii last month working with some folks there. And we were in, in the midst of this big, it's called a comp pod or a competition pod where you have like, we had 20 to 30 whales. And then usually Usually it's all male and with one female and they are all trying to get close to the female. They're like body slamming each other. They're blowing huge bubble clouds.

0:29:50 Thomas: So? It's Tinder. Okay. Yeah, what else is new? Yeah, that

0:29:52 Heidi: Yeah, exactly. You have all of these, these males competing to get closer to the female. And then sometimes at the end of this competitive group, one whale will be the so-called winner, and he will swim off with the female, and we assume they mate, but no one has observed that happening. Even with tags? Yeah.

0:30:11 Thomas: Is crazy What, what in the world. So, you, so we've seen all, all this kind of ritual stuff, we've seen the, the, the build-up, the date, the, the romance, the weird dances, the whatever, like the birds do, and but they just go off somewhere and like, we're, we can't access that? Somehow nobody can keep up with them? That is crazy to me, okay.

0:30:14 Heidi: Yeah. Right. Yeah. Or, you know, another thought is maybe it happens so quickly or so discreetly that we don't recognize it's happening. Yeah.

0:30:41 Thomas: Well, that's hilarious, but also weird, I can't believe that happened. Uh, what about the other way? Do we, we know anything about the other whale, or

0:30:47 Heidi: Other whale is not a whale that was known to me, but the other whale, as far as I know, is still doing fine. And you could probably pull that whale up on Happy Whale and see where he is these days. We had his ID. Yeah, we

0:31:02 Thomas: Had his ID. Well, Delightful. Uh, although with a bit of a sad ending, I'm kind of, that, a that's bummer, didn't know about that. But so what's the horizon for you? I, I know a thing about you scientists, you're always studying something. You've always got plans. What's going on in the future?

0:31:17 Heidi: I do have a couple of studies that I'm continuing this summer in Juneau, Alaska. So one of them is a continuation of my long-term study of humpback whales. So I've been studying humpback whale up here. Be going into my 14th year. And this study is the basic part of it is that photo ID technique I mentioned. So we go out and we photograph every whale we see. And then with that information, we can document association patterns or friendships, you know, who tends to be hanging out in a group with, who and more often. And we can get things like habitat use, site fidelity, those types of things. And then layered on top of that.

0:32:03 Heidi: Yeah, Site fidelity. So do they, site Sight fidelity. Yeah. So do they have certain areas that they like to hang out in more than others? Yeah. Yeah, we're also doing a project in collaboration with NOAA and University of Alaska Fairbanks where we are taking blubber biopsy samples from humpback whales to assess their health. So we're kind of like getting a health assessment or building up these patient records, as we call them, for humpback whales. So we're learning more about their progesterone levels. We can predict if a female is pregnant or not. We're looking at testosterone in males. We can get a measure of maturity. Interestingly, testosterone in some whales tends to peak before they go down to the mating grounds. It's like they're getting ready for all of that mating activity. We're also looking at stress hormones to see if stress is linked to vessel traffic in the Juneau area.

0:32:02 Thomas: Was that? Psych fidelity? Sight fidelity. Oh, gotcha. Okay.

0:32:30 Thomas: Yeah.

0:33:04 Thomas: That would be stressful. I also imagine every single one of these whales, you're like, come on, just tell us, tell us where you mate. Just, come on. We just, we just want to watch a little. No, that came out wrong. Just, we We're just wanna know where, just, ah, nevermind. All right. See you later. Here's your blubber back. I don't know. Yeah.

0:33:22 Heidi: If only, you know, there have been some lately in the scientific literature and in the news about some strides some researchers are making to communicate with whales. Know, there's a group working to communicate with humpback whales and then a group working with with sperm whales, and that's definitely out of my my sphere, and you are interested in that topic and trying to make some ground on that. Well, have a second study going on in Alaska. Sure, I'm working with a graduate student on another humpback whale project to look at what's called the whale pump. Hump, it's how whales can help to redistribute nutrients throughout the ocean. And one of the ways they can do this is through their poop. By pooping, it Does. Yeah. Yeah, so with this project, we've actually been scooping up whale poop that's

0:33:46 Thomas: That's really neat. Um, Uh, it always comes back to that, geez. Ocean

0:34:17 Heidi: On the surface of the water and then sending it it to a lab to analyze for nutrient content and looking at the impact of that whale poop on ocean productivity.

0:34:29 Thomas: Productivity? What does that mean? Wow.

0:34:31 Heidi: So what call primary production or the amount of plant life in the ocean, the amountof phytoplankton, because if we have more phytoplancton, we have healthier oceans because that forms the base of the whole food web.

0:34:44 Thomas: Yeah, time we talked about whale poop, right? I feel a lot of it, right, I mean, it's massive, makes a big difference in the ocean, that is pretty crazy, well that's fun, yeah, well

0:34:46 Heidi: Did. Yes. So it's, yeah, that we are continuing to, yeah. Dig into the benefits of whale poop. Pun intended tended there. Yeah.

0:35:04 Thomas: We'll have to keep an eye on that, but this was a delight. I am still sad to learn about this whale that passed away, but um, I still think forever shall his memory be a blessing in the form of the one whale mating documentation we have now for humpbacks, right? Specifically for hump, their name is humpback and we don't, we haven't seen him hump. We've never said that's crazy. Come on, unbelievable, scientists get on it. What can we do, what, where can we, where can we donate to see whales actually hump? The humpback whales, really humping? No, but in seriousness, is there anywhere you'd like to point people? By the way, I will link happywhale.com. That is super cool. Now want to get a picture of a whale somehow, just so that I can register it on that site and see the whale's name. That would be amazing.

0:35:11 Heidi: Yes. Right. Right, yeah, at least for humpback. I know. We're working on it. Yep.

0:35:50 Heidi: Yes, yeah.

0:35:50 Thomas: Is there any where else you'd to send folks?

0:35:53 Heidi: Think Happy happywhale .com is fine for this story.

0:35:55 Thomas: Okay. Well, know where to put your photos, everyone, if you ever get a photo of a whale. I really can't wait to do it. And actually email me if you do. I really want to know. Listeners, I want to your whale's name. Do they have actual names or is it just numbers?

0:36:06 Heidi: No, they have, so, you know, scientifically they all have a number, a unique number, and then some of them get nicknames. So on, on the feeding grounds where we tend to get to know the whales a little bit more and see them more regularly, a lot of them have nicknams.

0:36:23 Thomas: The website should let you name them. It should let, it should let you, okay, if you know who does this website, there they should be a field for, like, suggest a name, you then maybe it should only be like if you take a picture of them, you get to suggest a name. And then, like maybe there could be some sort of voting. This is, that would be great because you don't want just someone to do Whale McWhaley face or whatever, you know, you want to like actually have some thoughtful names based on someone who's actually seen the whale. Okay. That's just my ideas. I'm going to contact the maker of that website. No, this has been a pleasure. Dr. Heidi Pearson, as always, thanks so much for coming on the show.

0:36:55 Heidi: So much. Anytime.