Suppose you are big “fins” of humpback whales. In that case, you likely already know that the waters off the coast of BC are known as feeding grounds for these gentle giants, with their main purpose of being here to build up as much of a fat reserve on their bodies as possible before making a huge migration down south, heading either to Hawaii or Mexico which is where they will breed and have their calves. While in those southern waters, their energy comes from burning through the layer of fat that they build over the summer months here.

What you might not know is that a lot of the behaviours that we see from the humpback whales are learned from others, not necessarily just instinct kicking in. The transfer of information between individuals doesn’t just apply to feeding behaviours either; it’s also very noticeable in their songs. When in the southern breeding grounds, the male humpbacks will spend a lot of their time singing, with their songs consisting of different and unique verses and choruses. Every once in a while, a whale will make a slight change, adding some notes or verses, and the other whales take note. If they like it, you can track the change throughout the oceans as more of the whales hear this change and decide to add it to their song as well. As the change ripples out through contact with other whales, you know that this is a transfer of knowledge. The same type of thing happens with the feeding behaviour. The whales will develop these new techniques, and when they spend time associating with another whale, they will sometimes pass this information along to them. We see it most commonly with surface-based feeding techniques, which might be obvious since many observations of whales are made at the surface from boats. One of the most amazing examples of sharing of knowledge and cooperation in feeding with the humpback whales is through Group Bubble Net Feeding. Further north in their range, you can have large groups of whales that coordinate hunting behaviour, blowing bubbles from their blowhole under the surface of the water. When moving, these bubbles form a wall which their prey can’t (or won’t) pass through. Coordinated by a single individual verbally, the whales will work together to release this wall of bubbles in a large spiral or “P” shape, trapping and concentrating their prey. Once given the go-ahead, the whales then lunge up through this concentrated mass of food, mouth open, and gather a large amount of food.

Interestingly, over time, some whales have been spotted doing this on a smaller scale, individually or in pairs, also using their bubbles to form these nets, concentrating their food. But they don’t come up with this on their own. It’s knowledge passed along between individuals! When whales are associating or travelling close together, they are likely in communication, working together to feed beneath the surface. Sometimes one of these whales would be known for one type of unique feeding behaviour, like circle bubblenetting, and the other wouldn’t be. But then something amazing will happen. After the whales are no longer associating with the non-bubblenetter, they will suddenly become a whale that can bubble-net!

We had an exciting example of this today, when the tour started with a lone humpback spotted lunge feeding in our rich waters: Fallen Knight (BCX0915). She was doing some typical (although still very impressive) feeding close to the surface. Not too far from her, we spotted another feeding humpback, but this time with a twist: they were laying down a circle of bubbles to concentrate their food before lunging up through it! This whale was Sergeant (BCX1846). Sergeant is known to frequent not only the waters of the Salish Sea, but also up in Alaska, close to Juneau. Interestingly, they have already been to Alaska this year, starting with a sighting in Hawaii in mid-February, then being seen off of Alaska in mid-June, and ending up close to Nanaimo now! It’s a lot of ground covered for a whale, but the ties to the northern sections of the Pacific Northwest are likely where he learned this feeding technique from. While we watched on in awe as the bubbles rose to the surface and Sergeant lunged up through them, we noticed something else: Fallen Knight was making her way over here. Soon enough, both whales were feeding together in the area, with Fallen Knight even giving an attempted bubble net herself. It was learning in action! Only time will tell if this is a technique that we see from Fallen Knight in the future.

We also got to witness another set of whales that would be learning from each other, a mom and calf travelling with another individual: Ghost (BCX1333), her 2025, and Zorro (BCX0380). The relationship between a mom and her calf is the ultimate example of learning in action, since mom will be passing on as much information as possible to their young one during the first year of their life that they spend together. Feeding techniques, surface behaviours, and other humpback social norms all seem to be things that will be passed on from mom to calf. We got to see an impressive variety of behaviours from these whales, from feeding dives, socializing, to surface activity like tail slapping and cartwheeling! It was a fantastic sight to witness this young whale learning from their mom. We felt so privileged to witness all of the amazing interactions throughout the tour today, and returned to the dock with the smiles still glued to our faces.

Please enjoy all the fantastic photos taken throughout the trip by the onboard Marine Naturalists Val Watson, Aly Kohlman, and Jordan Robinson!