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Mystery mass gatherings of humpback whales


Claire.

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Never-before-seen gatherings of hundreds of humpback whales.

In a mysterious change to their normal behaviour, humpback whales are forming massive groups of up to 200 animals.

Humpbacks aren’t normally considered to be terribly social. They are mostly found alone, in pairs, or sometimes in small groups that disband quickly. But research crews have spotted strange new social behaviour on three separate cruises in 2011, 2014 and 2015, as well as a handful of public observations from aircraft.

These super-groups of up to 200 were spotted feeding intensively off the south-western coast of South Africa, thousands of kilometres further north from their typical feeding grounds in the polar waters of the Antarctic.

Read more: New Scientist

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Maybe this just looks new to us.

It wasn't so long ago that there were so few of them that gatherings like this weren't possible, they nearly went extinct. 

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  • The title was changed to Mystery mass gatherings of humpback whales

I would be happy just to see one whale. A gathering of around 200 would be an incredible sight to witness.

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On 3/11/2017 at 3:28 AM, AnchorSteam said:

Maybe this just looks new to us.

It wasn't so long ago that there were so few of them that gatherings like this weren't possible, they nearly went extinct. 

That is what I was thinking.  Now that their population is recovering maybe they are reverting to their normal behavior.  Hopefully that is teh case and the trend continues.

2 hours ago, Still Waters said:

I would be happy just to see one whale. A gathering of around 200 would be an incredible sight to witness.

My son and I watched a young humpback troll back and forth a couple hundred yards offshore a week ago.  Mostly just the spray but it was still awesome.

Edited by Merc14
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Maybe they're going to migrate to Wales or New South Wales. :D

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I saw the same thing happened last month in Texas when McDonald had a 60% sales on double cheese burger

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5 hours ago, Parsec said:

Are they gathering in order to finally plan how to take the world over? 

Time for them to make their move.  

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On March 11, 2017 at 3:28 AM, AnchorSteam said:

Maybe this just looks new to us.

It wasn't so long ago that there were so few of them that gatherings like this weren't possible, they nearly went extinct. 

I thought as whales go, Humpbacks were fairly common, and I thought they were not a big target of whalers in days past. It is curious they are aggregating in large numbers. I saw them in Hawai`i in the Moloka`i Channel when I was a teenager, it was really cool to see them breaching offshore of Maui. 

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I know this is not the case, but in my perfect world they are gathering to attack anyone that attacks them. :gun:

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So long, and thanks for all the fish...

edit:someone beat me to the punch lol

Edited by Cryptid_Control
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Pre-Migration gathering makes logical sense..

Are they gathering at a primo food source area?

Maybe an inter-pod gathering to then split up and form some newer smaller pods...

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