So it was really sweet. It was one of these days we were out on the boat. I was working with the Icelandic Orca project who was one of my collaborators for my Ph.D. and we were out on the boat trying to get biopsies and it was really foggy that day and there was a group of Killer Whales just feeding on a ball of herring next to us.
And it takes a lot of effort and coordination for these Icelandic killer whales to herd the herring into a tight ball. And then what will typically happen is that the big bull in the will come and slap the fish, which kind of stuns the herring for a bit. And then all the whales will come and slurp the herring, • which is kind of cool, actually. I kind of love that fact.
But what happened that day is that while the adults were performing the herding, the mom left her calf with us, at the rib boat. And so the calf was just kind of bored and looking for stuff to do. So it was just, like, playing around the boat, blowing bubbles and like, kind of popping its head out. It was being really curious. We didn’t have a hydrophone in the water, but I think at some point its mom was probably calling it come eat, because it would go and rejoin the group. And then as the herring ball moved around,every time they had to herd the herring into a ball again, the mom would, like, bring back the little calf to the boat and go herd the ball.
And, well, in the meantime, the calf is keeping busy and giving us, like, the cutest little moments. And then it was off again with its parents, so, that was really cool.
-Anaïs
This post was adapted from a voice recording in episode 85 of the Whale Tales Podcast, listen here
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