
Humpback whales around the globe are mysteriously rescuing animals from orcas - nreece
http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/animals/stories/humpback-whales-around-globe-are-mysteriously-rescuing-animals-orcas
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japhyr
Humpbacks are amazing animals. I live in southeast Alaska, and humpbacks pass
through here every spring and fall. They spend their winters in Hawaii where
they mate, and they come back here to feed in the spring and summer.

When they first arrive in the spring you can see their vertebrae as they arch
their back for a dive. After eating all summer, you can see how much they've
filled out by the time they pass through on their way south in the fall. When
they arch for a dive they've fattened up enough that you can't see individual
vertebrae anymore.

It's an amazing experience to paddle a kayak out into a calm bay and sit for
an hour surrounded by a dozen humpbacks, or to sit in a calm stretch of ocean
with whales surfacing as far as you can see in every direction. They'll come
within ten feet of a kayak, and you know they'll never bother you. They just
seem curious about what's out in the water with them.

They engage in bubble-net feeding. A group of humpbacks circle underwater
beneath a school of herring. They let out bubbles and build a wall of bubbles
around the herring. The whales then swim up inside the bubbles and break the
surface with their mouths open, feasting on the trapped herring. It's wild to
see a ring of bubbles appear near you on the surface, and then see half a
dozen whales rise up out of the water with their mouths open.

My favorite part of being close to whales is listening to them breathe. You
can hear the size of their lungs from the sound of their breaths.

If you've never been close to whales, try to get on a whale watching tour.
They're just incredible to see in person.

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electic
I just went to Alaska. It was my first time and I couldn't believe the amazing
beauty I've seen. I would love to go back. You mentioned kayaking, any
suggestions on where to go?

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peterwwillis
For Gray Whales, Bahia Magdalena, Puerto Vallarta and Laguna Ojo de Liebre all
have great whale watching, and in Bahia Magdalena you can pet them from a
boat; don't know about restrictions on kayaks there but it should be open in
Puerto Vallarta (just don't get in the water, too much bacteria/jellies).
There's also Depoe Bay in Oregon and Monterey Bay in California, and Lime Kiln
State Park in Washington for Orca watching.

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nkoren
Petting a whale from a boat is an amazing experience -- I did this 23 years
ago in Ojo de Liebre. The mother Gray Whales would push their calves up to the
boats so that they could receive some petting on the nose. There was no
material reward for doing so -- they didn't get food or anything. I got the
distinct impression that they understood that having an emotional bond with
humans was important, and that they were doing it for that reason.

Gotta say that it worked.

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mrob
There's an interesting video of a humpback whale being freed from a net:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcXU7G6zhjU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcXU7G6zhjU)

We don't know for sure if it really is showing appreciation at the end, but
humpback whales are social animals so IMO it's plausible. It certainly makes a
big effort at breaching despite being trapped for a long time and despite
there being no other whales nearby. Why would it do that if it's not trying to
communicate with the humans?

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b6
Interesting! I don't know, of course, but it strikes me that it could just be
pure happiness. After I give my dog a bath outside and let him off the leash,
he tears around the yard.

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knutae
Humpback whales apparently have to defend their juveniles against hunting
orcas. It is surprising that they would defend other species in the same way,
but it seems likely to be the same instinct that causes them to protect their
own, rather than altruism.

Then again, maybe you could make the same claim about humans. :-)

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gozur88
It doesn't necessarily have to be altruism to make sense. Less for orcas to
eat --> fewer orcas --> fewer attacks on humpback calves.

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buserror
Or perhaps it makes sense to practice the skill as much as they can, so they
are better at it when it comes to defend their own young?

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MrMullen
To me, this is what it is. If young Humpbacks are vulnerable for a certain
amount of time, being good at protecting them would a good idea. They can't
risk losing that skill since every time they fail, a young Humpback dies.

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SeanDav
If I may play Devil's advocate here - it is very easy to anthropomorphize
animal behaviour. There are numerous examples in the animal kingdom of animals
protecting and even rearing animals from other species. This could be down to
genetics and learned behaviour and nothing to do with altruism, or other noble
sentiments.

Part of me says it is highly unlikely that Humpback whales have a vendetta
against killer whales and are the policeman of the oceans, but the bigger part
of me, wants to believe that they are exactly that!

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cygx
_it is very easy to anthropomorphize animal behaviour_

It's also very easy to assume humans are more special than we actually are.

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finid
I do find it interesting that we (humans) think we are "more special" than we
actually are.

People just forget or don't know that the same spark that powers our physical
bodies also powers the physical bodies of other living things.

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cygx
And that the brains that support our minds are part of said bodies. Eg corvids
with their tiny little bird brains are apparently capable of feats of
intellect that are very human-like in various ways.

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Tosh108
It's interesting that we have such a hard time accepting the emotion of
altruism both in humans and animals. The author of the articles states: "could
just be revenge". Revenge is in many ways more senseless then altruism for
evolutionary purposes (unless you directly attack killer whales that threaten
you, but one could argue that that's a form of self-defence), but from our ego
perspective it feels more intuitive, at least to the author. There are also
comments in this thread that reflect this way of thinking.

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jdimov10
I don't deny that altruism exists, but to me it's just another form of egoism.
Nobody can convince me that they have ever done anything for ANY other reason
than because of the belief that it will be good for them or that they'll get
some sort of kick out of it. Not Mother Theresa, not anyone, ever. Because
it's not possible. If you don't put your own interests first, you have nothing
to give to others anyway.

Moreover, people who are not egoists freak me out. To me, such people are the
ultimate hypocrites and I fell that I can't trust them with anything.

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rfrey
It seems like this point of view is unassailable because for every example
that, in regular understanding, would be selfless behaviour, the definition of
self-interest is stretched to encompass it.

\- Anonymous philanthropy => feelings of self worth

\- Low reward public service (Mother Theresa) => fame and influence

\- Parents sacrificing personal good for kids => some kind of evolutionary
advantage

\- Falling on a grenade => Avoiding survivors guilt

I don't mean to present strawman arguments for these scenarios - if they are
silly I apologize. In any case, it seems to me that denial of altruism always
ends up stretching the definition of selfish and shrinking the definition of
selfless, so that any scenario can fit.

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cloverich
I agree. I wonder if a better strategy would be to amend the definition of
altruism to include doing something for someone else because it makes you feel
good. Surely most would agree that "it makes me feel good to help someone" vs
"I financially gained from helping someone" are not the same type of
"selfishness" (excluding the genetic reductionist explanations).

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Tosh108
My problem with this argument is there's an underlying assumption that the end
of the day our basic core motive is selfish/egotistic, it might be so but many
who use this assumption as a base of their arguments do not bother to prove it
because believe that it is so.

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tomlock
Maybe they do it because less food for orcas means less healthy orcas to hunt
their own calves?

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adwn
Maybe, but less food for orcas also means more hungry, desperate orcas hunting
humpback whale calves.

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tomlock
Maybe, but at some point a hungry orca starves.

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genericacct
On a similar note: last week i observed a group of seagulls relentlessly
attacking a phantom quadcopter that was flying over their territory. The quad
clearly wasn't trying to eat their offspring so it could be that the whales
are just asserting their territorial rights..

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celticninja
asserting their rights by allowing a hunted seal to rest on its belly and
helping it remain there by using its fins?

Did you read the article before commenting?

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cosmicac
He could mean asserting its rights by not allowing other animals to hunt in
its territory. I don't know if that is common behavior among animals though.

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transfire
Everyone knows that Orcas are the assholes of the sea.

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zipwitch
Only some of them. The transient orca are the ones who eat mammals and don't
have large social groupings. The resident orca have larger (matriarchal)
social groups and _don 't eat other mammals_, just fish.

It's always amazing to me that we have multiple intelligent (how intelligent
is uncertain), social species right here on our own planet, and we spend such
a tiny fraction of our energies as a society trying to communicate with them.

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5xman
Your comment and the parent really surprise me. Passing such moral judgements
based on the diet of a species seems a bit 'youtubish'. Using the same logic
one could argue that humpback whales are the real assholes since they protect
those seals and sea lions so they can prey on those tiny, little penguins
which are the cutest.

(Seals even rape them :'( [http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20141117-why-seals-
have-sex-w...](http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20141117-why-seals-have-sex-
with-penguins4))

~~~
Dylan16807
> Passing such moral judgements based on the diet of a species

Causing harm to social intelligent species, such as by eating them, is
objective. In theory another species could eat plants and also attack mammals
for fun all the time. That species would also be assholes. This isn't a
judgement based on 'diet', it's a judgement based on how they interact with
others.

> since they protect those seals and sea lions

That's not the same logic. The same logic might lead you to call seals and sea
lions assholes, but it wouldn't extend to the whales.

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5xman
(Please, excuse my english)

I think I agree with you 100% based on what I think your comment reveals about
your ideas. The point I was trying to make is that it's too often that we
judge animal behavior based on our mental constructs, when I think it makes no
sense at all even for the most intelligent of the animal species. Somebody
pointed out that we are not so different from animals, and so it shouldn't be
a big stretch to apply our labels to animal behavior. But I think we are so
far from animal behavior that it makes it very difficult to analize/understand
it without a really big effort and a long time of study. Scientists get very
close, but internet comments are too often narrow-minded. Orcas are not
'killers', at least not more than any other predator. They are very
intelligent and gregarious, and they eat other animals. Jumping from this to
'they are assholes' was, in my opinion, not called for. In what 'interaction
with others' was this based on? I think a real judge would have a hard time
trying to distill intent from animal interactions.

Your second point is completely right. But as a matter of fact, I think that
both whales, seals, sea lions and all animals in general are all fine
gentlemen. I have my doubts about that monkey pulling the legs (literally, and
the tails) of two tigers, though.

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jontas
Your english is perfect, nothing to excuse.

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grondilu
Some form of brood parasitism, maybe? I mean it is known that orcas hunt whale
calves and presumably this involves an instinctive reaction from the adults to
the calf's distress signal.

So perhaps various other preys have learnt to imitate this distress call in
order to gain protection from what are possibly the only animals in the sea
capable of fighting an orca.

Or maybe whales just hate orcas and want them to starve.

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tgarma1234
I wish we could have a big long term experiment where maybe we try to teach
the whales to let us know if they understand altruism and whether they could
be taught to communicate an intention to us directly by flipping a switch to
activate lights or something like that. It seems like whales are aware of what
they are doing in a deeper way than other animals but we just don't know how
to access their intentions through communication.

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_Codemonkeyism
Can we stop calling Orcas killer whales? Thanks.

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doctorstupid
It could be training practice for the protection of their own young.

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er0l
real whale wars!

