Humpback whales are organizing in huge numbers, and no one knows why

[pianopraze]

article written to perfection, they even added 'So long and thanks for all the fish'.

link

so are they dodging sun spots? incoming metro we don't know about?

animals react before earthquakes because of subsonic sound... is that going on here?

ideas?

Humpback whales are organizing in huge numbers, and no one knows whyIt flies in the face of typical humpback behavior.


The world is ending and only the whales know. At least, that’s one explanation. Humpback whalesare normally pretty solitary—scientists used to call groups of 10 to 20 “large.” Now they’re congregating in groups of 20 to 200 off the coast of South Africa. Something is definitely going on here, but so far experts are stumped.
In fact, Humpback whales aren’t supposed to be hanging out in that region in the first place. Humpbacks migrate up to tropical waters to breed, but they typically feed down south in the icy waters of Antarctica this time of year. Yet scientific expeditions keep seeing these super-pods (not to be confused with super PACs, which are equally giant but much more dangerous), which were finally compiled and published at the beginning of March in the journal PLOSone. The researchers have a few ideas about why the humpbacks are organizing, but no clear answers yet. So far the consensus seems to be: this is pretty freakin’ weird.
Most of the whales seem to be young, begging the question of whether the western coast of South Africa is like the humpback version of the local mall for tween whales. They’re just looking for a fishy Orange Julius, or perhaps a krill-based Panda Express to hang out at on a Saturday afternoon. Because it’s not like 200 whales—each weighing about 65,000 pounds —can feed just anywhere.

[Inspector44]

One of the most b-hole puckering experiences I ever had wile scuba occurred while diving off of the northern coast of the big island of Hawai'i. We had just come out of a lava tube and came upon a small pod of humpbacks that were strolling by. We didn't hear the calls cause we were in the cave. There's something unsettling about seeing something so large in the water right in front of you when you don't expect it. One of the bulls saw us and moseyed over to check us out too which ended up being pretty cool and then they just carried on. Man, I miss scuba diving.

[pianopraze]

One of the most b-hole puckering experiences I ever had wile scuba occurred while diving off of the northern coast of the big island of Hawai'i. We had just come out of a lava tube and came upon a small pod of humpbacks that were strolling by. We didn't hear the calls cause we were in the cave. There's something unsettling about seeing something so large in the water right in front of you when you don't expect it. One of the bulls saw us and moseyed over to check us out too which ended up being pretty cool and then they just carried on. Man, I miss scuba diving.

Me too (free diving.snorkeling) almost got eaten by a baby whale shark once.

[BeyondKnowledge]

It is a whale flash mob set up to annoy some whale biologists. They are angry that videos of them are no where near as popular as cat and dog videos. The whales demand that the biologists do better at posting videos of them.

[BeTheGoddess]

FWIW: the best practice for euthanizing whales is imploding them with dynamite.

Ducks is carbon monoxide.

Fish you freeze them.

I dont remember the pesticide that killed those 3 dolphins tho.

[StoutBroux]

Interesting.  You know many of the doomsday movies say the Horn of Africa is where you want to be when the world is 'mostly' ending.  

Although South Africa is a bit south, it's still in the general area.  And maybe mankind has it wrong.  Maybe it's South Africa that is the place to be.  Animals can sense things humans cannot.  

Or, maybe there's an abundance of their favorite food we aren't aware of.  

ETA:

Ok, I was being flippant and hadn't read the article.  Yeah, so hundreds of 65,000 pound humpback whales all trying to exist for the moment in the same area?  I mean, they eat between 3,000 and 5,000 pounds of food each day.  So just a few could wipe out an area of resources unless there's a phenomenal amount of krill and small fish continuously flowing into the area.  Very strange.  Article states some scientists have some ideas but they're not sharing atm.  

Makes one wonder.

[StoutBroux]

So I did a little research.  This is old news, nevertheless, really interesting.  Been happening since at least 2010 and research info from 2011 is available online.

Article here:  https://journals.plos.org/plosone/articl...ne.0172002

Sightings log:

[sahgwa]

FWIW: the best practice for euthanizing whales is imploding them with dynamite.

Ducks is carbon monoxide.

Fish you freeze them.

I dont remember the pesticide that killed those 3 dolphins tho.

You mean exploding the whales? if you wanted to implode them wouldn't you have to pack the dynamite all around them like a vest? 
Can you like get them to swallow dynamite instead?
hm
Inquisitive minds...

This Whale Congregation may have to do with the Magnetic Field Anomalies.

[RickyD]

I remember reading a while back about a pod of killer whales which learned to and started hunting sharks. Around the time the first was killed all the sharks within many hundreds if not thousands of miles all hauled ass to this spot in the pacific and went much deeper than usual for a while. Had all the scientist scratching their heads. Eventually things returned to normal.

[Nerb]

Maybe they aren't Humpback Whales.

Maybe they are USOs disguised as Humpback Whales getting ready to launch a land invasion from the depths of their hidden Atlantean City.