Nick
Garland
Founder and Editor
It’s not often you see a humpback whale so close to shore, but onlookers in Ketchikan, Alaska caught footage of a humpback whale using the bubble net technique very close to the Knudson Cove Marina.
In the video, bubbles can be seen rising to the surface in a ring formation just before a massive humpback whale emerges out of the water with fish desperately wriggling away. With bubble-net feeding, a group of whales typically blows bubbles in a ring around a group of fish. They start in deeper water and drive the fish to surface, making the ring smaller as they ascend. The concentration of fish allows the whales to on many more fish and krill than they would normally collect just swimming in the open ocean.
Humpback whales migrate to the poles in the summer where they feed on fish and krill. In the winter, they make a trek to tropical and subtropical waters where they breed and give birth. Humpbacks do not feed in the winter but instead rely on their fat reserves. They travel on average 16,000 miles (25,000 km) every year during their migration.