Scientists have captured incredible new footage of a unique method whales use to trap their prey and it's one of the most fascinating sights you'll ever see.?
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The video of the hunting strategy was shot off the coast of Southeast Alaska, where humpback whales?created spiral-shaped fishing 'nets' made up of bubbles, to trap their prey.?
¡°The footage is rather groundbreaking,¡± said Lars Bejder, director of the Marine Mammal Research Program at UH-M¨¡noa, in a video about the research. ¡°Overlaying these two data sets is quite exciting.¡±
?¡°We¡¯re observing how these animals are manipulating their prey and preparing the prey for capture. It is allowing us to gain new insights that we really haven¡¯t been able to do before,"?Lars Bejder said.
'The team used drones to capture the view from above. Cameras and sensors attached to the whales by suction cups gathered video and data from the whale's point of view', reads the study.?
¡°Basically we have two angles and the drone¡¯s perspective is showing us these bubble nets if you will and how the bubbles are starting to come to the surface and how the animals come up through the bubble net as they surface."
"While the cameras on the whales are telling us from the animal¡¯s perspective, so overlaying these two data sets is quite exciting,¡± added Bejder.
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Scientists think that the calls of the whales might create an acoustic 'wall of sound' that intimidates the prey into remaining inside the bubble-net. With the? bubbles they churn up, they have enough?fish and krill inside the torrent, to satiate their appetite.?
"Around 3,000 humpback whales travel to Alaska during the feeding period in the summer," Bejder said in the video.?
When comes the time to migrate for the winter, whales travel 3,000 miles to Hawaii and do not eat till they return to Alaska. Humpbacks are one of only two whale species that has been observed engaging in bubble-net feeding, say scientists.?