Encounter with a huge shadow
Standing on the deck of the research vessel Ocean Dawn in Monterey Bay, California, Dr. Emily Carter suddenly felt a shaking sensation beneath her feet. The surface of the water, just three meters to port, rose up to reveal a huge, shiny black body. It was a humpback whale more than 15 meters long. Captain James Holloway was astonished. I’ve been out in these waters for 50 years,” he said, “and I’ve never seen a whale this close. The whale remained quietly on the surface, staring into Emily’s eyes and refusing to leave.
Shadows that do not disappear the next morning
The next morning, the whales were still swimming alongside the port side of the Ocean Dawn. Emily had her research assistant, Marcus Johnson, raise the drone and check the aerial footage. There were several white scars running down the whale’s back. They appeared to be the bite marks of fishing ropes. Marcus tilted his head. Normal whales would not have chased the boat for so long,” he said. Why is this one the only one that has not left the boat?”
Protection in the storm
Late on the third day, a powerful low pressure system suddenly swept in from the Pacific Ocean. The storm, with winds exceeding 35 meters per hour, shook the ship violently, and the waves reached seven meters. Emily clung to the railing and lit up the surface of the ocean. In the darkness, a huge whale swam close to the port side of the ship. It was as if it were supporting the ship with its massive body to keep it from tipping over. Captain Holloway’s voice came out low. That whale is trying to …… protect us.”
Boarding the research vessel
Emily boarded the Ocean Dawn 21 days ago. She had been assigned to the vessel for three weeks by Stanford University Marine Laboratory to conduct a whale population survey in Monterey Bay. For the first two weeks, the whales avoided the ship from afar and the survey was slow going. Then, just before the night of the storm, the whales suddenly appeared. Emily wrote in her research journal, “Why did only this one whale show up? Emily wrote in her logbook, “Why did this individual alone choose to approach the ship on this particular day?”
Meet the Research Team
Emily’s research team consisted of three people. Research assistant Marcus Johnson, 27, was a young biologist from San Diego who was better than anyone at handling underwater cameras and recording images. The other assistant, Leah Sanchez, 30, was a whale sound analysis expert from the University of California. Neither of them had ever been this close to a whale, and neither could hide their excitement every morning when they stepped on deck. And Captain Holloway was a 50-year veteran of these waters.
First record
When Marcus checked the images taken by the underwater camera, he found a distinctive white spot pattern spreading across the whale’s abdomen. This is important data for individual identification. We checked it against existing databases, but were unable to find an exact match. However, a detailed comparison of the scar patterns revealed a 70% similarity to a 15-year-old individual registered in the database. Leah said seriously. I wondered if this individual had had a deep relationship with humans in the past.”
Captain’s old logbook
The morning after the storm passed, Captain Holloway brought Emily an old notebook, the logbook from 15 years ago. When I was young,” he said quietly, “I once rescued an injured whale around here. There was a record of a calf entangled in a rope, and it took the divers on board more than two hours to free it. The details of the rescue, down to the type of equipment used, were written in detail. The coordinates of the day of the rescue coincided almost exactly with the area where the Ocean Dawn is now.
Consistent with 15 years ago
An old photo was tucked into the captain’s logbook. It showed the back of a calf whale entangled in a rope. When Emily superimposed the location of the scars on the current image of the whale, the placement of the three scars on the left side of the back was remarkably similar. However, the 15-year-old individual was a juvenile, and the current whale is clearly a mature adult. The ages did not match. Emily was puzzled: was the whale rescued 15 years ago the same individual as the current whale, or was there some other connection?
Singing Voice Recordings
Leah dropped an underwater microphone and recorded the whales’ singing throughout the night. The humpback whale song changes slightly each year, and each individual or group has its own unique “dialect. The next morning, Leah’s hands stopped as she began analyzing the data. The specific syllable pattern of the current whale’s song matched perfectly with the mother whale’s singing data recorded in these waters 15 years earlier. This meant that the current whale could be either the mother whale or a calf that had inherited her “song.
Bubbles and Dialogue
Emily began calling out to the whales from her deck every morning. As a scientist, she was aware that she was getting too emotionally involved, but she couldn’t stop. One morning, the whale exhaled a large amount of air bubbles from its mouth, creating a wall of white bubbles. This is a foraging behavior called “bubble-net feeding,” and it was extremely rare for whales to do this in the absence of food. Was the whale trying to communicate something to Emily with this behavior?
