{"id":214907,"date":"2025-05-27T21:08:39","date_gmt":"2025-05-28T02:08:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/05\/humpback-whales-are-organizing-in-huge-numbers-and-no-one-knows-why"},"modified":"2025-05-27T21:08:39","modified_gmt":"2025-05-28T02:08:39","slug":"humpback-whales-are-organizing-in-huge-numbers-and-no-one-knows-why","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/05\/humpback-whales-are-organizing-in-huge-numbers-and-no-one-knows-why","title":{"rendered":"Humpback whales are organizing in huge numbers, and no one knows why"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<p><iframe style=\"display: block; margin: 0 auto; width: 100%; aspect-ratio: 4\/3; object-fit: contain;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/jc6aufHz-i0?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope;\n   picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The world is ending and only the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.popsci.com\/category\/whales\/\" target=\"_blank\">whales<\/a> know. At least, that\u2019s one explanation. Humpback <a href=\"https:\/\/www.popsci.com\/first-underwater-sighting-elusive-whale\/\" target=\"_blank\">whales<\/a> are normally pretty solitary\u2014scientists used to call groups of 10 to 20 \u201clarge.\u201d Now they\u2019re congregating in groups of 20 to 200 off the coast of South Africa. Something is definitely going on here, but so far experts are stumped.<\/p>\n<p>In fact, Humpback whales aren\u2019t supposed to be hanging out in that region in the first place. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.popsci.com\/category\/whales\/\" target=\"_blank\">Humpbacks migrate<\/a> up to tropical waters to breed, but they typically feed down south in the icy waters of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.popsci.com\/antarctic-crack-grows-even-bigger\/\" target=\"_blank\">Antarctica<\/a> this time of year. Yet scientific expeditions keep seeing these super-pods (not to be confused with super PACs, which are equally giant but much more dangerous), which were finally compiled and published at the beginning of March in the journal <a rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/journals.plos.org\/plosone\/article?id=10.1371\/journal.pone.0172002\" target=\"_blank\"><em>PLOSone<\/em><\/a>. The researchers have a few ideas about why the humpbacks are organizing, but no clear answers yet. So far the consensus seems to be: this is pretty freakin\u2019 weird.<\/p>\n<p>Most of the whales seem to be young, begging the question of whether the western coast of South Africa is like the humpback version of the local mall for tween <a href=\"https:\/\/www.popsci.com\/how-new-zealand-is-avoiding-exploding-whale-corpses\/\" target=\"_blank\">whales<\/a>. They\u2019re just looking for a fishy Orange Julius, or perhaps a krill-based Panda Express to hang out at on a Saturday afternoon. Because it\u2019s not like 200 whales\u2014each weighing about <a rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nmfs.noaa.gov\/pr\/species\/mammals\/whales\/humpback-whale.html\/\" target=\"_blank\">65,000 pounds <\/a>\u2014can feed just anywhere.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The world is ending and only the whales know. At least, that\u2019s one explanation. Humpback whales are normally pretty solitary\u2014scientists used to call groups of 10 to 20 \u201clarge.\u201d Now they\u2019re congregating in groups of 20 to 200 off the coast of South Africa. Something is definitely going on here, but so far experts are [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":579,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-214907","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-futurism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214907","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/579"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=214907"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214907\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=214907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=214907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=214907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}