Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name
Speaker 1: is Robert.
Speaker 2: Lamb and I am Joe McCormick. And Rob and I
Speaker 2: are out for a few days this week, so we
Speaker 2: are bringing you some episodes from the vault. This is
Speaker 2: part two of our series on the gray whale. This
Speaker 2: series originally ran in March of twenty twenty three. This
Speaker 2: episode was published on March seventh, twenty twenty three. We
Speaker 2: hope you enjoy.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, production of iHeartRadio. Hey,
Speaker 1: welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name is
Speaker 1: Robert Lamb.
Speaker 2: And I'm Joe McCormick, and we're back with part two
Speaker 2: of our series on gray whales, inspired by a first
Speaker 2: hand encounter that Rob had recently. Right, that's right.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I go into detail a little bit more about
Speaker 1: this in the first episode, but basically, the family and
Speaker 1: and I got to go down to Baja California, Mexico
Speaker 1: to see gray whales in their their breeding lagoons and
Speaker 1: it was it was magical. We got to observe them
Speaker 1: in their their their most peaceful setting. And uh, and
Speaker 1: so we're gonna we're gonna talk a little bit about
Speaker 1: about that setting today but also their their cycle while
Speaker 1: they go why they go through these migration cycles and
Speaker 1: so forth.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so if you haven't heard part one yet, you
Speaker 2: should probably go back check that one out first. In
Speaker 2: that we explored the basics of gray whales h describe
Speaker 2: some of their their major characteristics, but we also talked
Speaker 2: about things like their relationship with barnacles. They have some
Speaker 2: obligate barnacles that they are usually encrusted with. Today, we're
Speaker 2: going to focus some more on on grey whale ecology,
Speaker 2: such as how they fit into their environment, especially with
Speaker 2: regard to predators.
Speaker 1: That's right, especially there, they're really their primary predator, their
Speaker 1: main predator, and that is the orca, the killer whale.
Speaker 2: I guess, their main predator other than humans.
Speaker 1: Yes, aside from humans, and of course there have been
Speaker 1: fluctuations in the risk posed by humans to grey whales.
Speaker 1: It certainly hasn't gone away. Our risk to gray whales
Speaker 1: go beyond merely whaling them. It also applies to other
Speaker 1: things we're doing to the environment. But yes, aside from us,
Speaker 1: it's the orca that is the main threat. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's really the orca that is the threat posed to
Speaker 1: gray whales that have helped shape what the gray whale is.
Speaker 1: It's really difficult. It seems to overstress the importance of
Speaker 1: this predator's role in the life cycle of this whale
Speaker 1: in particular, but multiple whale species. So we've discussed the
Speaker 1: orc on the show before, I believe if they've come up,
Speaker 1: although I don't think we've ever really done a deep
Speaker 1: dive on them. They are an apex predator, They're an
Speaker 1: oceanic dolphin, and their range is nothing short of the
Speaker 1: world's oceans. If you look at maps depicting where killer
Speaker 1: whales can be found, and it's basically like, well, is
Speaker 1: the ocean there, well, then that's their range. Though that
Speaker 1: coverage has also been described as a bit patchy. It
Speaker 1: doesn't mean like the oceans just packed with them, and
Speaker 1: their conservation status is technically data deficient, so you know,
Speaker 1: there's still some some unknowns about about their their their
Speaker 1: their cycles and their whereabouts. But the orca itself has
Speaker 1: no natural predators. It is the absolute top of the
Speaker 1: food chain. Now. The orca has long been creatures of
Speaker 1: reverence for many indigenous populations, especially those populations with ties
Speaker 1: to the sea, and many of these understandings have a
Speaker 1: more I would say, based on what I've been reading,
Speaker 1: more nuanced visions of the orcas and understandings of the
Speaker 1: of the orca compared to Western depictions that up until
Speaker 1: very recent times, depictions and understandings of killer whale were
Speaker 1: very much focusing in on their savagery and also greatly
Speaker 1: exaggerating their potential threat to humans. Because we'll touch on
Speaker 1: this later, but there have been no documented cases of
Speaker 1: a killer whale in the wild killing a human.
Speaker 2: Being, though there have been quite a few cases in captivity.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, and that's of course a sad story in
Speaker 1: and of itself. Well, we're probably not going to go
Speaker 1: into that much, but I did a fair amount of
Speaker 1: reading about that over the weekend as well. I watched
Speaker 1: the trailer for Blackfish, and it made just the trailer
Speaker 1: alone was a bit too much for me. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: have to build up my courage to actually watch Blackfish,
Speaker 1: which is a documentary about captive orcas and some of
Speaker 1: the very tragic events and deaths that have surrounded that practice.
Speaker 1: But long before that was taking place, you had people
Speaker 1: like plenty of the Elder, our old friend, plenty of
Speaker 1: the Elder chiming in on Orca. He describes them in
Speaker 1: detail in one chapter of the Natural History, stating that
Speaker 1: their form quote cannot be in any way adequately described,
Speaker 1: but as an enormous mass of flesh armed with teeth.
Speaker 2: You could say that about almost any mammal.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't. It's a it's a strange description. I mean,
Speaker 1: we're we're fortunate, I guess, and that we have so
Speaker 1: many wonderful photographs, so much great footage of Orca, and
Speaker 1: in many cases as well, a lot of people get
Speaker 1: to glimpse them in the wild, you know, from a
Speaker 1: from a distance usually, I guess. But but still we
Speaker 1: have a better idea of like what a killer whale is,
Speaker 1: and we don't have to just think, well, I know
Speaker 1: there was flesh, and I know there were teeth.
Speaker 2: I mean that image conjures to mind, just like one
Speaker 2: of those tumors that grows teeth. But it's just like
Speaker 2: floating in the ocean.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it sounds like some sort of science fiction monster.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, this chapter is definitely worth
Speaker 1: checking out for plenty of fans because he goes into
Speaker 1: a little bit of detail though about their hostility toward
Speaker 1: the Belena towards the whales, and this, of course is
Speaker 1: very true or at least of some varieties of orka
Speaker 1: in one variety in particular that we're going to discuss,
Speaker 1: and it's actually reflected in the name killer whale, which
Speaker 1: the author and naturalist Mark Carwodine in his book A
Speaker 1: Handbook of Wales, Dolphins and Porpoises of the World, he
Speaker 1: points out that moniker killer whale is derived from whale killer.
Speaker 1: Now the species name for the orca is orcinis orca,
Speaker 1: and this is an interesting assembly as well, with the
Speaker 1: ancient Roman use of orcanas meaning belonging to the kingdom
Speaker 1: of the dead, and orca meaning either a kind of
Speaker 1: whale or a barrel in the Greek I've seen it
Speaker 1: also translated as like barrel whale. So Orca may be
Speaker 1: the only true natural predator of the gray whale, though
Speaker 1: large sharks like gray white sharks have been known to
Speaker 1: attack calves and even adults. And then you have things
Speaker 1: like the cookie cutter shark that make a small shark
Speaker 1: species that may take bites out of adults. But these are,
Speaker 1: you know, I think you might think of these more
Speaker 1: as nuisances than like true predators, though maybe I'm not
Speaker 1: being fair to the cookie cutter sharks. I mean they
Speaker 1: are taking bites out of If something was taking a
Speaker 1: bite out of me, I would consider it probably a predator.
Speaker 2: Depends how big the bite is.
Speaker 1: Well, as the name implies, they're small bites and and
Speaker 1: they're smaller I guess the bigger you are. But anyway, Yeah,
Speaker 1: the orca are the very to say the least, a
Speaker 1: hell of a predator to have to deal with.
Speaker 2: They are.
Speaker 1: They are ruthless and cunning. They employ various pack hunting
Speaker 1: or I guess you might call it called pod hunting
Speaker 1: attack strategies against their prey, and the list of possible
Speaker 1: prey for a killer whale is pretty long. That they've
Speaker 1: been observed to prey on eight white sharks in the
Speaker 1: waters off the coasts of South Africa and New Zealand,
Speaker 1: strategically targeting and removing the livers of these great whites,
Speaker 1: like tucking into them right behind the pectoral fin, and
Speaker 1: like removing the liver and then eating the liver from
Speaker 1: the gray white. But when it comes to orcas and
Speaker 1: their diets, it gets intriguingly complicated. So orcas, as Carbadine describes, quote,
Speaker 1: have a bewildering array of ecologically distinct forms called ecotypes,
Speaker 1: And while they're generally considered to be all of the
Speaker 1: same species again Orcanis Orca, you might think of them
Speaker 1: as genetically distinct ORCA cultures.
Speaker 2: This makes sense given all of the different things I
Speaker 2: was reading about, sort of subgroups of orcas specializing in
Speaker 2: different types of prey, like, for example, while the orcas
Speaker 2: are one of the main predators of grey whales, not
Speaker 2: all orcas would show any interest in a grey whale.
Speaker 1: That's right, and gets even crazy when you look at
Speaker 1: again genetically distinct ORCA groups, these echotypes and then each
Speaker 1: you may have two different ecotypes inhabiting the same waters,
Speaker 1: but they don't associate with each other. Each ecotype has
Speaker 1: its own behaviors, its own diet, its own social structure,
Speaker 1: its own vocal signatures, its own distribution patterns. So it
Speaker 1: gets really fascinating when you look at all the different examples.
Speaker 1: And I'm not going to go into all the different
Speaker 1: ecotypes here, but of note, for our discussion of the
Speaker 1: North Pacific, there are two distinct ecotypes to consider. There's
Speaker 1: the resident or fish eating killer whale, and then there's
Speaker 1: biggs killer whale also known as transient killer whales, but
Speaker 1: I think biggs killer whale is the preferred title.
Speaker 2: Okay, So I'd imagine it's some of those resident or
Speaker 2: fish eating killer whales that you know, gray whales might
Speaker 2: go right by them and they're not going to mess
Speaker 2: with them. They're not going to be interested.
Speaker 1: Yeah, as the name implies, members of the fish eating
Speaker 1: acotype eat mostly fish and they usually ignore marine mammals.
Speaker 1: Bigs killer whales though, Yeah, these are the true whale killers,
Speaker 1: and it's fascinating. They live in smaller groups, usually just
Speaker 1: two to six. The groupings for other varieties of like
Speaker 1: fish eating orca tend to be larger. They're seemingly the
Speaker 1: big s whales. Carbondine rites are not interested in eating
Speaker 1: fish at all, though, I have to say in his
Speaker 1: book there is a photo of one that's labeled as
Speaker 1: a is a big skiller whale that's playing with the
Speaker 1: salmon in its mouth. So, I don't know, Maybe it's
Speaker 1: just playing with the salmon, maybe it's eating it a
Speaker 1: little bit. I don't know. Part of being such an
Speaker 1: intelligent apex predator is killer whales have been observed to
Speaker 1: play with their food a bit the big skiller whale
Speaker 1: occasionally kill birds, but yes, as the description implies, they
Speaker 1: mostly hunt whales, pinnipeds, and sea otters. Now they are transient,
Speaker 1: they're kind of erratic, apparently in their movements. I couldn't
Speaker 1: help but think of it as kind of like this
Speaker 1: roving band of bikers. Though I'm over anthromorphizing here. And
Speaker 1: it's also worth noting that one of the reasons that
Speaker 1: Biggs is preferred over the name transient is because apparently
Speaker 1: transient can be a little misleading, so that their movements
Speaker 1: are erratic, but they do follow the movements of their
Speaker 1: prese species, so they're not just They're not just completely random.
Speaker 1: I guess we might compare them to the bank robbers
Speaker 1: in what is it, Point Break, the mass bank rappers
Speaker 1: in the Surfing movie. They're kind of like the Nixon masks. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, they're they may seem chaotic, but they have
Speaker 1: a code and there there are certain patterns they're following.
Speaker 1: Uh huh. Now I mentioned the genetic differences carbon in
Speaker 1: mentions that the bigs Orcas are actually the most genetically
Speaker 1: divergent out of all these ecotypes, and there are actually
Speaker 1: strong arguments to be made for speciation. Here he writes
Speaker 1: that DNA evidence has shown it bigs killer whales began
Speaker 1: diverging some seven hundred thousand to seven hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: thousand years ago. So again the orca. It seems difficult
Speaker 1: to overstress how important a role they play in the
Speaker 1: shape of modern whales, the way that these whales have survived,
Speaker 1: because one of the things you have to survive in
Speaker 1: the world as a whale, or basically any organism that's
Speaker 1: going to be in the same waters as the killer whale,
Speaker 1: you have to be able to survive the killer whale.
Speaker 1: And it's a heck of a thing to have to survive.
Speaker 1: Because I just kept thinking reading about them that it's
Speaker 1: like they seem like the absolute perfect oceanic predator. You know,
Speaker 1: like they are they're robust, they're fast, they're intelligent, they're social.
Speaker 1: You know, you can compare them in some ways to
Speaker 1: something like a great white shark. But great white sharks
Speaker 1: are for the most part solitary, like they don't work together,
Speaker 1: they lack the intellect of an Uh. The orcas are
Speaker 1: just and then the orcas are also not. Not to
Speaker 1: say that sharks are set in their ways. But but
Speaker 1: like the orca have shown that they have a have
Speaker 1: a real resiliency that they can they can change, they
Speaker 1: can alter their uh you know, whatever happen if there
Speaker 1: are changes in available food sources, they may shift in
Speaker 1: what they're eating, that sort of thing. And so for
Speaker 1: just a few examples of how this has affected the
Speaker 1: the shape of modern whales, I was reading another book Whales,
Speaker 1: Their Biology and Behavior by Hammond at All And apparently
Speaker 1: their uh, their threat factors into the audible world of
Speaker 1: the marine environment. So fish eating orca produce loud clicks
Speaker 1: that in many cases their prey can't hear. This is
Speaker 1: certainly it seems to be the case with salmon, for example,
Speaker 1: and they use these clicks for echolocation. But the bigs
Speaker 1: killer whale, well, they're they're feeding mostly or or exclusively
Speaker 1: on mammals that are acoustically sensitive, and so bigs killer
Speaker 1: whales are quieter, and they use what they refer to
Speaker 1: in this book as a cryptic echolocation strategy that employs
Speaker 1: fewer clicks and irregular timing of said clicks.
Speaker 2: Oh, so it's harder to detect that you are being
Speaker 2: clicked at.
Speaker 1: Right right, and the threat of the big skiller whales
Speaker 1: has led various whale species to adopt the use of
Speaker 1: narrow band, high frequency clicks that orcas can't hear. So
Speaker 1: pygmy sperm whales, for example, do this, though they sacrifice
Speaker 1: signal range for stealth by making this change. Other whales,
Speaker 1: like beaked whales, only use their echolocation at great depths
Speaker 1: below where the orcas hunt, and there are also various
Speaker 1: anti orc anti predator strategies that various whales use. I
Speaker 1: think we'll end up discussing these in a bit, but basically,
Speaker 1: like the orca posts such a threat, and such a
Speaker 1: complex and intelligent threat, like every whale species on the
Speaker 1: menu has had to adapt to that threat and come
Speaker 1: up with tactics for survival.
Speaker 2: Yes, though, I think, as we mentioned in the last episode,
Speaker 2: one thing that's very important to stress is that for
Speaker 2: most whale species we're talking about, there might be some
Speaker 2: a couple of exceptions, such as like maybe some of
Speaker 2: the minca whales, but for most billen whale species, it
Speaker 2: is really only the young that are directly threatened by orcas.
Speaker 2: Orcas rarely try to prey on healthy adults, and even
Speaker 2: more rarely succeed in praying on healthy adults.
Speaker 1: Right, I mean, you will find some accounts. I think
Speaker 1: there was a real I was just reading this before
Speaker 1: we came in here. There was an account of what
Speaker 1: seemed to be a pack of orcas attacking an adult
Speaker 1: blue whale. But yes, for the most part, this goes
Speaker 1: for I mean most predator species. What are predators going after.
Speaker 1: They're going after the hardest thing possible to kill. No,
Speaker 1: there's a there's a various economic facts that have to
Speaker 1: be taken into account. They want to go after the
Speaker 1: easiest thing to get that will give them that nutrient payoff.
Speaker 1: And in the case of whales, yeah, the cavs are
Speaker 1: the best bet. They're smaller, they're weaker. If they can
Speaker 1: separate them, if they can get to them, if they
Speaker 1: can tip the scales in their favor, then that's what they're.
Speaker 2: Going to go for. A paper that I'm going to
Speaker 2: talk about in a minute, it's an older bit of
Speaker 2: research from Rice and Woolman published in the year nineteen
Speaker 2: seventy one, that included a survey of the bodies of
Speaker 2: three hundred and sixteen gray whales that I think were
Speaker 2: off the coast of California, and it found that of
Speaker 2: those whales, eighteen percent had scars from previous orca attacks.
Speaker 2: And these would have been orca attacks. I guess that
Speaker 2: the whales survived. That doesn't necessarily tell you how the
Speaker 2: whales did not survive orca attacks.
Speaker 1: Oh, that's that's interesting. Carwodine rights that possibly every single
Speaker 1: gray whale alive has possibly been I think the way
Speaker 1: word it was in the mouth of a killer whale
Speaker 1: at one point or another. And certainly you see you
Speaker 1: see a lot of these rake like scars left by
Speaker 1: orca teeth on their bodies. They're apparently attacked by the
Speaker 1: orca at a greater rate than any other whale species,
Speaker 1: and as far as the young go. According to Carbodine,
Speaker 1: orca quote probably take up to thirty five percent of
Speaker 1: the gray whale calf population annually.
Speaker 2: And most of those attacks, it is believed, occur on
Speaker 2: the migratory corridor. And we'll talk more about grey whale
Speaker 2: migrations in a little bit or possibly in the next
Speaker 2: episode if the series goes to three parts. But yeah,
Speaker 2: there's like a migratory corridor for the for the Eastern
Speaker 2: Pacific gray whale where they go back and forth between
Speaker 2: their northern feeding grounds up in the Arctic regions in
Speaker 2: the summertime, and then in the colder months they go
Speaker 2: south to areas like Baja California where they have their
Speaker 2: breeding grounds, their calving grounds, and these lagoons. And it's
Speaker 2: during the travel back and forth that a lot of
Speaker 2: these attacks are going to occur.
Speaker 1: That's right, yeah, and we'll get into the specifics of
Speaker 1: that in a bit. But but again, the orcas are
Speaker 1: are cunning, and they're going to choose the exact right time,
Speaker 1: the exact right place to attack these rather large prey animals.
Speaker 1: But you know, briefly, you know again, why is this
Speaker 1: migration taking place? Well, it's because when you have a
Speaker 1: threat like the orca as a mother whale, you can't
Speaker 1: just give birth anywhere. You have to go where the
Speaker 1: orcas cannot go or won't go, and that's where these
Speaker 1: lagoons come into play. Like the Ojo de Leebre lagoon
Speaker 1: that I went to near Guerrero Negro in in Baja California, Mexico,
Speaker 1: place that is shallow, too shallow to favor certain killer
Speaker 1: whale hunting strategies, but also not so shallow that the
Speaker 1: whales themselves cannot move around in the waters. Now that
Speaker 1: being said, I happened across a paper this came out
Speaker 1: just last year in October, and this was the title
Speaker 1: of this paper was new peril for grey whale survival
Speaker 1: question mark. Predatory orc has spotted in Baja Calvin Lagoon.
Speaker 1: It's a situation where observers there had not seen orcas
Speaker 1: venturing into the lagoon, but then there was a spotting
Speaker 1: of them. And it doesn't sound like much came of this.
Speaker 1: It doesn't seem like there was any real follow up
Speaker 1: coverage that would indicate that the orcas came back and say,
Speaker 1: killed a bunch of calves or anything. I guess it
Speaker 1: was maybe more like a scouting mission, like maybe the
Speaker 1: orca has come in. They kind of realize, okay, with
Speaker 1: these this is not optimal for hunting, even though the
Speaker 1: things we want to eat are here. And then they
Speaker 1: move around and go back. But anyway, in this paper
Speaker 1: that the author speaks with Stephen Schwartz, a primary researcher
Speaker 1: with the Laguna sen Ignacio Ecosystem Science project down there,
Speaker 1: and the way he describes that is, Okay, you have
Speaker 1: the orc is, they're engaging in this they engage in
Speaker 1: this kind of pack hunting behavior, but it's not two dimensional,
Speaker 1: it's three dimensional. Especially when they're going up against dangerous
Speaker 1: prey like the gray whale, something that can conceivably kill
Speaker 1: them with a single blow of its tail. They need
Speaker 1: to be able to employ all of their strategies. They
Speaker 1: need to be able to you know, come at it
Speaker 1: from below, from the sides, etc. And we'll get into
Speaker 1: some of their tactics here in a bit, but basically
Speaker 1: they can't do that in the lagoon environment.
Speaker 2: Right, and as surface dwelling animals, it's not intuitive for
Speaker 2: us to think about physical conflict in this way really,
Speaker 2: you know, we're usually thinking about physical conflicts taking place
Speaker 2: with something on the same level as us on a
Speaker 2: place lane. But in this case, it would be something
Speaker 2: more like you know, a space fight in like a
Speaker 2: Star Wars movie where there's you know, there is multi
Speaker 2: directional attack exactly.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So again, the Orcas are cunning, they're intelligent. They
Speaker 1: realize that this is not the battlefield where they will
Speaker 1: have the advantage, and they know that if they they
Speaker 1: waited out, there will come a time when the battlefield
Speaker 1: does tip to their advantage.
Speaker 2: Now, one thing we always try to do, at least
Speaker 2: what we remember is you know, it's like when you're
Speaker 2: approaching the subject of predator prey conflicts from the origin
Speaker 2: point of the prey animal, Like we started off talking
Speaker 2: about grey whales and then now we're talking about orcas.
Speaker 2: That can tend to kind of make you want to,
Speaker 2: even if you normally have some protections against this, to
Speaker 2: unconsciously vilify the predator animal. You know, think like, oh,
Speaker 2: the orcas are so bad because they're attacking the gray
Speaker 2: whales we've been thinking about. But of course, you know,
Speaker 2: we all the the orcas are are beautiful, wonderful animals
Speaker 2: in their own way, and they're also just trying to
Speaker 2: survive that this is just what their ecological niche is
Speaker 2: their predators.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right. We can't think think of it as
Speaker 1: as the heroes versus villains and all of this, though
Speaker 1: I know it's it's very tempting to do so, and
Speaker 1: I found myself sort of fighting off that feeling, especially
Speaker 1: when when observing the great whales. But even in that
Speaker 1: that paper, that Los Angeles Times paper, and I want
Speaker 1: to credit the author on that. Suzanne Rust is the
Speaker 1: author in speaking with the Swartz like Swartz basically you know,
Speaker 1: says like, look, you know, this is just this is
Speaker 1: just how it is. Uh. You know, we're we're not
Speaker 1: just looking out for the great whales here, We're also
Speaker 1: looking out for the orca like they're there. It's part
Speaker 1: of the natural cycle of things here. So we shouldn't Yeah,
Speaker 1: we shouldn't fall into that line of thinking where oh no,
Speaker 1: the the the the the orca, the orcas are the
Speaker 1: enemy and the great whales are are the only heroes
Speaker 1: of the the ecology story going on before us. That
Speaker 1: being said, let's get into some of the dastardly ways
Speaker 1: New York has attacked gray whales and other whale species.
Speaker 2: Not dastardly except in the sense that every organism is
Speaker 2: I guess dastardly, and it's in its quest for survival.
Speaker 1: But they're solving problems. They're solving problems.
Speaker 2: Okay. So I wanted to return to a paper that
Speaker 2: I brought up with a more narrow focus in the
Speaker 2: previous episode, and it was a paper called Fight or
Speaker 2: Flight Anti Predator Strategies of baleen Whales, published in The
Speaker 2: Mammal Review in the year two thousand and eight by
Speaker 2: John K. B. Ford and Randall R. Reeves. Now, you
Speaker 2: might remember in the last episode the context was I
Speaker 2: was consulting this paper to explore whether the barnacle incrustations
Speaker 2: on gray whales should be thought of purely as either
Speaker 2: a parasitic type of infestation where it's harming the whale,
Speaker 2: or as a commensal infestation where you know, the arnicles
Speaker 2: getting something out of it. It has a substrate that
Speaker 2: brings it water flowing over it, so it can filter
Speaker 2: feed and it gets protection from predators, but the whale
Speaker 2: is not really affected one way or another. That would
Speaker 2: be a commensal relationship or and this was the hypothesis
Speaker 2: put forward in this paper, there is actually a mutual
Speaker 2: benefit to the whales that are encrusted with barnacles, because
Speaker 2: the thinking goes these encrustations with their hard calcium carbonate plates,
Speaker 2: might actually serve as a kind of weapon or armor
Speaker 2: on the outside of the whale when it is attacked
Speaker 2: by orcas. And there's some evidence for thinking of it
Speaker 2: that way, but it's not certain.
Speaker 1: Right And I think you mentioned too that one possibility
Speaker 1: is well, a predator might think twice about biting part
Speaker 1: of a whale that's encrusted with these hard barnacles.
Speaker 2: Or it might injure itself doing so.
Speaker 1: Right though the quick additional quark effect. There is one
Speaker 1: variety that excels in attacking sharks. And one of the
Speaker 1: ways that apparently this ecotype is often identified is that
Speaker 1: they'll it's it's rougher food to have to depend on,
Speaker 1: and they'll often grind their teeth down, like basically to
Speaker 1: the gum line of the Yeah, so they're not about
Speaker 1: some of the killer killer whales in general not above
Speaker 1: trading off dental health for a sustaining meal if they
Speaker 1: have to.
Speaker 2: I'm going to be thinking about that all day. It's
Speaker 2: just kind of gummy mouthed whales. But anyway, I wanted
Speaker 2: to come back to this paper to more broadly explore
Speaker 2: some of the ideas it puts forward about the way
Speaker 2: is that that whales, like gray whales, that bileen whales,
Speaker 2: have had their bodies and behavior shaped by predator pressures,
Speaker 2: specifically pressure from orcas. And this paper was exploring the
Speaker 2: different types of survival strategies for diferent species of billen
Speaker 2: whales wind confronted with orcas, and the authors proposed grouping
Speaker 2: them basically into two main classes. One class of whales
Speaker 2: were the ones with flight strategies and the others were
Speaker 2: fight strategies. The flight strategy is mainly practiced by whales
Speaker 2: in the Baileinoftera genus, So this would include the common
Speaker 2: minca whale, the Antarctic minca, the bruta swhale that's spelled
Speaker 2: it looks like brides b ry dee, but I think
Speaker 2: it's pronounced bruta, the say whale, the fin whale, and
Speaker 2: the blue whale. And with all these strategies, their reaction
Speaker 2: to a pod of orcas is basically just speedy retreat.
Speaker 2: They make a B line out there. The direction doesn't
Speaker 2: really seem to have any consistent relationship to the shoreline.
Speaker 2: They just make a B line away at top speed,
Speaker 2: usually speeds between twenty and forty kilometers an hour. And
Speaker 2: these are speeds that orcas I believe can typically match
Speaker 2: only for a short time. They usually can't or won't
Speaker 2: keep up with this speed for a long time, so
Speaker 2: they just fall back and don't catch them.
Speaker 1: And a lot and we'll get into this, but a
Speaker 1: lot of their tactics often revolve around sustained attacks.
Speaker 2: Yeah, However, with these flight species. They can usually get
Speaker 2: away because they just swim fast and they get out
Speaker 2: of there and the orcas don't keep up the chase.
Speaker 2: But an interesting thing is that all these flight species
Speaker 2: are just named. If they are overtaken by orcas, they
Speaker 2: usually are not able to put up much resistance at
Speaker 2: all and they just sort of like submit to death.
Speaker 2: That might be overstating it, but they do not really
Speaker 2: have much close fighting capacity. On the other hand, you've
Speaker 2: got the fight strategy, and this has been observed in
Speaker 2: other billen whales, such as the Southern right whale, the
Speaker 2: North Atlantic right whale, the bowhead, the humpback, and the
Speaker 2: gray whale, the ones we're focusing on in this series,
Speaker 2: and they say The authors here also say that the
Speaker 2: North Pacific right whale probably fits in this group two,
Speaker 2: but there haven't been enough documented cases of their encounters
Speaker 2: with orcas to say for sure. But the fight group
Speaker 2: encompasses a more diverse set of tactics basically everything except
Speaker 2: for high speed one directional swimming away. So what do
Speaker 2: the fight strategies include? One, Rob, I think you alluded
Speaker 2: to this a little bit earlier, but we can get
Speaker 2: into more detail now. One is group formations when in
Speaker 2: sufficient numbers. Some fight strategy. Whales respond to orca harassment
Speaker 2: by grouping together to form defensive formations, for example, by
Speaker 2: placing calves in the center of a sort of shape
Speaker 2: where they're encircled by adults. One example the authors give
Speaker 2: is something called the rosette, which is a circular formation
Speaker 2: with the heads of the adults will make a sort
Speaker 2: of flower pedal shape, and they will put their heads
Speaker 2: in the middle around the calf and then have their
Speaker 2: tail flukes pointing out, which if you have seen the
Speaker 2: mighty slap of a grey whale's tail fluke, or not
Speaker 2: just grey whale, any of these, you know, like a
Speaker 2: humpback's tail fluke, you can imagine why that might be
Speaker 2: threatening to an approaching orca. And an important thing to
Speaker 2: point out is that this type of thing, these group formations,
Speaker 2: are not only observed in the balen whales we're talking
Speaker 2: about in this study. Some toothed whales, for example, sperm
Speaker 2: whales have been observed to do something similar when harassed
Speaker 2: by orcas. Of course, sperm whales are predators, but they
Speaker 2: tend to prey on things like, you know, squids and stuff,
Speaker 2: and their calves are also sometimes attacked by orcas.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've seen this defensive formation that I guess we
Speaker 1: could kind of compare to like circling the wagons, but
Speaker 1: I've seen it referred to as the Marguerite formation in
Speaker 1: sperm whales, and it's something that sadly, whalers would sometimes
Speaker 1: take advantage of. They realized that if you had an
Speaker 1: injured whale, it would like basically draw in this defensive
Speaker 1: formation of additional whales which you could then also kill.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, and this fact of some whales coming to
Speaker 2: the aid of other whales is interesting, Like, it's kind
Speaker 2: of heartwarming. The author has mentioned southern right whales and
Speaker 2: humpbacks having been observed to join in with single whales
Speaker 2: or groups that are under attack by orcas, almost to
Speaker 2: help provide group defense. Now, we alluded to this a
Speaker 2: minute ago with the tail flukes pointing out outward, but
Speaker 2: some of the fight strategies of these whales are just
Speaker 2: physical blows. Like billen whales will sometimes lash out and
Speaker 2: strike at orcas, most often with either pectoral flippers or
Speaker 2: with the flukes with the tail. And the authors also
Speaker 2: say that quote right whales and humpback whales occasionally also
Speaker 2: lunge or swing their heads at attackers. So it seems
Speaker 2: like throughout this paper, the humpbacks really seem like the
Speaker 2: fightiest of the fight whales, Like they will really put
Speaker 2: up a fight. But all of these whales are powerful
Speaker 2: and can swing a floor or a flipper.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it makes sense. I guess that the gray whales
Speaker 1: are maybe not engaging and head based combat so much
Speaker 1: because their heads are just generally smaller compared to something
Speaker 1: like a humpback whales head. But they're certainly they certainly
Speaker 1: use the flippers and the flukes. In fact, one of
Speaker 1: the things in Baja California that the guides mentioned, they're like,
Speaker 1: do not, under any circumstances attempt to touch flippers or flukes,
Speaker 1: because those are the weapons of the whale. You know,
Speaker 1: the only thing you're touching, if the whale is curious
Speaker 1: in permitting it, is you're touching basically the head region.
Speaker 2: Yes, and while all these fight whales can put up
Speaker 2: a fight, like they can deliver a mighty smack with
Speaker 2: the with the tails or with the flippers, it seems
Speaker 2: consistent that the gray whales are thought of as some
Speaker 2: of the least inclined to deliver a blow in defense
Speaker 2: and instead practice some other interesting defensive strategies more often. Yes,
Speaker 2: this is fascinating, So let's get to what some of
Speaker 2: these other strategies the authors. One of them is environmental refuge.
Speaker 2: The authors right that all of the fight strategy whales
Speaker 2: except perhaps humpbacks, try to seek refuge in the physical
Speaker 2: environment for defense, and gray whales are singled out as
Speaker 2: the best example of this of refuge seeking. When threatened,
Speaker 2: they head for shallow waters. That's kind of interesting. If
Speaker 2: you don't read any further, you might really wonder why
Speaker 2: that would be. That would I would almost imagine like, oh,
Speaker 2: a whale, wouldn't a whale feel kind of cornered in shallow waters?
Speaker 2: But it turns out this is helpful for a number
Speaker 2: of reasons. One, shallow waters provide potential hiding places, such
Speaker 2: as in celt beds like forests of seaweed, or in
Speaker 2: breaking surf, and in both of these cases, these these
Speaker 2: are kind of like blinds for whales. It's a place
Speaker 2: where it's harder for orcas to locate and detect them.
Speaker 1: This also makes sense this distinction when you think about, say,
Speaker 1: like the humpback whale is a whale that its range
Speaker 1: includes you know, far open waters. But again, as we've
Speaker 1: discussed with the gray whale, these are whales that generally
Speaker 1: don't stray too far from the shoreline from the edge
Speaker 1: of the continent, so like this is there they really
Speaker 1: have a home turf advantage here.
Speaker 2: Yes, and another thing the authors point out is that
Speaker 2: the gray whales can make themselves even more invisible when
Speaker 2: hiding in shallow water through a breathing technique known as snorkeling,
Speaker 2: where essentially they expose as little of their body as
Speaker 2: possible above the surface to breathe. Basically only the blowholes
Speaker 2: are exposed. Now, why would this make them harder to find?
Speaker 2: The researchers suggest it may be because this is somehow
Speaker 2: a quieter way to breathe than their normal breathing movements,
Speaker 2: and orcas hunt in part by sound. But this part
Speaker 2: is really important. In addition to providing hiding places like
Speaker 2: kelp forests and breaking surf, shallow water also protects gray
Speaker 2: whales by depriving orcas of room to stage their preferred attacks.
Speaker 2: So the predators in shallow water simply cannot maneuver the
Speaker 2: way they need to to do the attacks. They want,
Speaker 2: and these attacks would include like ramming the calves to
Speaker 2: try to separate them from adults.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's worth noting here that that orcas are
Speaker 1: certainly susceptible to beaching now, you know. Granted, there are
Speaker 1: of course famous examples of self beaching attacks by orcas
Speaker 1: against against creatures, you know, just on the shore. Though this,
Speaker 1: it's worth noting, seems to be a learned tactic and
Speaker 1: not an instinctual one. So it takes even these these
Speaker 1: orca groups that practice self beaching as a hunting tactic,
Speaker 1: it takes them a long time to learn it and
Speaker 1: do it properly.
Speaker 2: Yes, and it seems, at least certainly for the kinds
Speaker 2: of orcas that prey on whales, the shallows are just
Speaker 2: not where they're comfortable. That it is not where they
Speaker 2: have room to make the moves that they need to make,
Speaker 2: usually to get a calf away from its mother and
Speaker 2: kill it right right. So for this reason, the authors
Speaker 2: say that in fact, orca's usually abandon an attack if
Speaker 2: the prey is able to make it to the shallows.
Speaker 2: So the grey whale gets into the shallows. The orcas,
Speaker 2: it's not like they usually will keep trying and fail.
Speaker 2: They're not even going to follow them there, they just
Speaker 2: give up. Now, I think another point that we might
Speaker 2: want to remember is that it seems to me a
Speaker 2: retreat to the shallows is not without risks. You might think, well,
Speaker 2: why would that involve risks? But the authors here mentioned
Speaker 2: quote fight species that retreat into shallow water would need
Speaker 2: good maneuverability to negotiate obstacles and prevent accidental stranding. So,
Speaker 2: I mean, stranding is a real threat when you're a whale,
Speaker 2: and a whale that goes into the shallows to hide,
Speaker 2: I think that could be thought of as somewhat analogous,
Speaker 2: not completely, but somewhat analogous to a land animal trying
Speaker 2: to hide from a predator by going into the surf
Speaker 2: in the ocean, like there is a chance you get
Speaker 2: washed out and drowned.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, Now, it does seem though the grays are
Speaker 1: quite good at navigating the shallows. That seems to be
Speaker 1: the case based on the materials we've been looking at here.
Speaker 1: But again just going back to my observation of them
Speaker 1: in Mexico, the lagoon was again reasonably shallow, you know,
Speaker 1: deep enough that the whales can maneuver easily in there
Speaker 1: and even move around at some rather intense speeds. Because
Speaker 1: there again there was the calving, there was the there
Speaker 1: are mothers and babies, but there was also mating going on,
Speaker 1: and the mating gets a lot more frenzied. They'll do
Speaker 1: this thing too. That's called, I think sometimes referred to
Speaker 1: as freight training. I think it's the term where they're
Speaker 1: like just a group of whales will just start zooming
Speaker 1: through the water. And their speeds to me were quite impressive,
Speaker 1: but still like this is a lagoon, the tides coming
Speaker 1: in and out. There were some fairly drastic changes based
Speaker 1: on the tides. So yeah, it seemed to me like
Speaker 1: that the grays really knew what they were doing. It
Speaker 1: makes sense again because the gray whales are a species
Speaker 1: of whale that don't ever really go too far from
Speaker 1: the shore and the grand scheme of things, and they're there.
Speaker 1: The way they feed is to go down to the bottom,
Speaker 1: so they're they're tied to kind of like the edges,
Speaker 1: the hard and soft edges of their oceanic environment.
Speaker 2: All right, So next thing, we've talked about group formations,
Speaker 2: physical blows, environmental refuge. The next thing I want to
Speaker 2: mention is defensive maneuvers, so gray whales are less inclined
Speaker 2: to physically fight by striking with with flukes or flippers,
Speaker 2: though they will certainly do that in cases when defending calves.
Speaker 2: They're just do it less than other species such as
Speaker 2: like humpback whales, but the author's right quote. Instead, they
Speaker 2: often roll at the surface so that their dorsal surface
Speaker 2: rather than their ventral surface, meaning the back instead of
Speaker 2: the belly, is exposed to attack from below. Killer whales
Speaker 2: often debilitate and kill bileene whales by ramming forcefully and
Speaker 2: repeatedly into the ventral sides of their prey. Thus, rolling
Speaker 2: upside down may protect the vulnerable underside from attack. And
Speaker 2: I've actually watched some documentary footage of exactly this and
Speaker 2: the next thing I'm about to mention happening when orcas
Speaker 2: are swimming up on a gray whale adult that she
Speaker 2: will just roll back and expose her belly up above
Speaker 2: the water and have her back down below. I guess
Speaker 2: the back is much more protected from these striking attacks
Speaker 2: by the orcas.
Speaker 1: Again just pure observation on my part, but some of
Speaker 1: the whales that would come up to the boat would
Speaker 1: do this, they would roll under their backs, and I
Speaker 1: didn't think about it at a time because at the
Speaker 1: time it's like kind of like big dog. It's almost
Speaker 1: like they want me to scratch their belly in my arm. Again,
Speaker 1: we're like, you know, twenty feet long maybe, but but yeah,
Speaker 1: like this is maybe they're kind of rehearsing behaviors as well.
Speaker 2: I don't know. This next thing is really interesting. This
Speaker 2: is something gray whale mothers apparently do when escorting calves.
Speaker 2: Not only do they roll over on their backs at
Speaker 2: the surface of the water to keep the more vulnerable
Speaker 2: ventral side or the belly up above the water line,
Speaker 2: they will sometimes literally lift their calves out of the
Speaker 2: water up on their bellies, placing them out of reach
Speaker 2: of the orcas. So the orcas are trying to ram
Speaker 2: the calf and injure it and get it away from
Speaker 2: the mother, so the mother will flip her more protected
Speaker 2: back underneath and get the baby up on like above
Speaker 2: the water, on top of her.
Speaker 1: Fascinating. Yeah, this reminds me again like one of the
Speaker 1: behaviors you see from the babies eventually in the lagoon
Speaker 1: is that they'll start when are strong enough to start breaching,
Speaker 1: they start kind of like jumping out of the water,
Speaker 1: not just sticking parts part of their head up, but
Speaker 1: actually like jumping most of the way out of the water,
Speaker 1: if not all the way out of the water. And
Speaker 1: it's thought that this may also be rehearsals for defensive maneuvers,
Speaker 1: as the mother and calf eventually move out of this
Speaker 1: predected lagoon and into rather dangerous domains of the orcas.
Speaker 2: Right, And so you could see how that could be
Speaker 2: that kind of maneuvering practice could be useful in both
Speaker 2: ways for these purely defensive maneuvers, where like the calf
Speaker 2: is trying to get up on its mother's belly to
Speaker 2: get away, or for actual attacks if they're trying to
Speaker 2: slam down on the orca or something.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because these babies again, they're these are these are
Speaker 1: these are big babies.
Speaker 2: Now. One thing explored in this paper that caught my
Speaker 2: attention is the relationship between these different uh fight versus
Speaker 2: flight strategies and how that manifests as morphological differences differences
Speaker 2: in the body shapes of these different types of whales.
Speaker 2: So the author's right that flight whales the one that
Speaker 2: just escape as fast as they can are. You might
Speaker 2: not be surprised to learn more streamlined for fast movement,
Speaker 2: with elongated forms, typically smaller flippers to reduce drag while swimming,
Speaker 2: and what they call high aspect ratio flukes, which they
Speaker 2: say this is quote a measure of surface area relative
Speaker 2: to fluke length for propulsive efficiency and high speed. So
Speaker 2: you can look up pictures of this if you want.
Speaker 2: But these, these flight whales will tend to have just
Speaker 2: less chunky looking flukes, whereas the fight whales have kind
Speaker 2: of i don't know, more rounded, thicker flukes that just
Speaker 2: have more surface area.
Speaker 1: Well, looking at this illustration you provide, it's like if
Speaker 1: you turn the fluke on its side and assume that
Speaker 1: it is a mustache, you're more the closer you are
Speaker 1: to a pencil thin mustache. Well, then yeah, that's going
Speaker 1: to be your flight your fight those going to be
Speaker 1: your bushier mustache.
Speaker 2: That is a good comparison. Yeah, So, so flight whales
Speaker 2: they're specializing for speed. Fight whales, on the other hand,
Speaker 2: are not specialized for speed, but for maneuverability. And this
Speaker 2: is important to think about. So it's not necessarily so
Speaker 2: much for just being able to like hit and deliver
Speaker 2: a blow with the tail or the flipper, though that
Speaker 2: is part of it, especially for some of these species,
Speaker 2: but it's for maneuverability. And what does that mean. Essentially,
Speaker 2: it means being able to turn on a dime. The
Speaker 2: fight whales have larger and longer flippers and larger fluke
Speaker 2: surfaces relative to their body size, and what this allows
Speaker 2: them to do is turn quickly in tight spaces and
Speaker 2: change which direction they're facing, even if they don't have
Speaker 2: any forward momentum, so they can kind of like turn
Speaker 2: quickly at a near standstill. And I was trying to
Speaker 2: think about a good analogy here. It seems like the
Speaker 2: difference would be between like the turning movement capabilities of
Speaker 2: an airplane versus a helicopter, or your fight whales are
Speaker 2: going to be more like a helicopter and your flight
Speaker 2: whales are going to be more like an airplane.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think that's a a's a solid comparison.
Speaker 2: Of course, being able to turn around quickly is a
Speaker 2: is a clear advantage if you are trying to defend
Speaker 2: yourself or especially to defend your young against against killer whales,
Speaker 2: because you need to be able to orient your body
Speaker 2: so that the more defensible part of it, or the
Speaker 2: threatening part of it is facing the nearest killer whale quickly.
Speaker 2: And this also allows whales such as gray whales to
Speaker 2: do that like rolling at the surface.
Speaker 1: And again we might think like where does this give
Speaker 1: the whale the biggest advantage? Again, it comes down to
Speaker 1: shallower waters where they can turn on a dime, but
Speaker 1: the killer whales cannot employ their three D hunting tactics.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know how far we should go
Speaker 1: with the helicopter versus airplane, but it's like it's one
Speaker 1: thing to imagine say fighter jet versus attack helicopter, just
Speaker 1: you know, out in the open sky, but now imagine
Speaker 1: that that imagine combat going down like in a city scape.
Speaker 2: In a tunnel or something. Yeah. I've got one last
Speaker 2: thing from this paper I want to add, which I
Speaker 2: think should give a little bit of emotional payoff to
Speaker 2: learning all this stuff about the anti predator strategies of whales,
Speaker 2: and that is that, though, of course, you know, the
Speaker 2: both the predator and the prey animal, it's not like
Speaker 2: we begrudge either one. They both have a right to
Speaker 2: live and the predators do need to hunt in order
Speaker 2: to survive. But it turns out most of the time
Speaker 2: these anti predator strategies are successful, Like in most of
Speaker 2: these encounters between orcas and gray whales, the orcas are
Speaker 2: not successful in killing one of the whales, not just
Speaker 2: grey whales, but all of the whales I think talked
Speaker 2: about in this paper. It's just that the anti predator
Speaker 2: strategies are pretty effective. The flight whales they swim fast
Speaker 2: and they usually get away, and the fight whales are
Speaker 2: usually able to repel or avoid an orca attack.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Basically, it's like whatever is necessary to price yourself
Speaker 1: out of being eaten? Can you make yourself just too
Speaker 1: costly of a of a prey h target for the
Speaker 1: predator and uh and yeah, you just have to sort
Speaker 1: of cross that line. And also always thinking about this,
Speaker 1: it always reminds me of that part in Butch Casting
Speaker 1: and the Sundance Kit about you know, would you make
Speaker 1: that jump if you didn't have to?
Speaker 2: Mm hmm.
Speaker 1: There's only so much that the predator is going to
Speaker 1: do because ultimately there are there are other whales in
Speaker 1: the sea. Yeah, all right, Well, on that note, we're
Speaker 1: going to go ahead and close it up for this episode.
Speaker 1: We'll be back though in one final episode on Gray
Speaker 1: Whales and also essentially on Orcas as well. Just a
Speaker 1: reminder that Stuff to Blow Your Mind as a science
Speaker 1: podcast with core episodes publishing on Tuesdays and Thursdays. On
Speaker 1: Mondays we do listener mail episodes, on Wednesdays we do
Speaker 1: a short form artifact or monster fact episode, and on
Speaker 1: Fridays we set aside most serious concerns and just talk
Speaker 1: about a weird film on Weird House Cinema. I forgot
Speaker 1: the name of it mentioned the name of the of the
Speaker 1: Friday episodes.
Speaker 2: Huge thanks to our audio producer JJ Posway. If you
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