It’s a calm morning in the waters of Southeast Alaska. There isn’t a ripple in the water, except for the circle of bubbles that come to the surface not twenty feet from our bow. Everyone is silent, save for a quick whisper here and there.
Suddenly, the world erupts in a spray of splashes, screams, and simultaneous camera clicking. A pod of humpback whales have bubble netted just off the bow.
Bubble netting is a cooperative feeding effort practised only by the humpback whales in Southeast Alaska. And it’s not just a one-time thing. Research shows that the groups of whales that practise cooperative feeding do so for years at a time, and not all are related by blood. Rather, they are related by choice, and by the pursuit of the same goal.
Andy Szabo, director of the Alaska Whale Foundation, spends a lot of time on a small skiff watching the whales. So does Dr. Fred Sharpe, who knows the humpbacks by name. (Humpbacks have a unique fluke pattern, just like humans have a unique fingerprint.) Each group of whales has a leader, who circles and sings a unique song to drive the herring to the surface. The other whales circle, their bubbles creating a “net” to encircle the herring, waiting for the end of the song which directs them to surface in an explosion of huge creatures.
It’s an impressive effort to watch, no matter the distance. And it doesn’t matter where the whales dive; they can surface anywhere around you. We watch for the telltale bubbles and focus our cameras there. They surface, a collective gasp comes up from the crowd on the ship. For a few moments, they swim near us, surfacing to blow, fluking when it’s time to dive and between the cycle all over again.