From high above the dark water of an Alaskan bay, a ring of white foam appears, and a moment later a crowd of humpback whales bursts up through it with mouths wide open. Humpback Whales Bubble Feeding Drone Views, a short film from the creator AkXpro published in November 2014, shows one of the most remarkable hunting techniques in the ocean from a seagull’s point of view.
The Alaska drone video
The 88-second film follows a large group of humpbacks feeding together in what the creator describes as the pristine waters of Alaska. From a boat, bubble feeding looks like sudden chaos at the surface. From the air the pattern becomes clear: patches of foam, then dark backs and huge open jaws rising together as the whales gulp the prey they have trapped.
Watch it on Vimeo: Humpback Whales Bubble Feeding Drone Views.
How bubble-net feeding works
Humpbacks are filter feeders. They eat krill and small schooling fish, swallowing huge mouthfuls of water and prey and straining the water out through their baleen plates. Pleated grooves along the throat let the mouth expand enormously for each gulp.
In bubble-net feeding, the whales dive below a school of fish, sometimes to around 20 m, and swim in a shrinking circle while blowing air from their blowholes. The rising bubbles form a curtain, or cylinder, that traps the fish inside. The whales keep blowing as they spiral upward, herding the prey into a tight ball near the surface, then lunge up through the middle of the ring to engulf it. Some whales make an upward spiral of bubbles and others a double loop, and NOAA notes that techniques vary between regional populations. Groups often hunt this way together, but solitary humpbacks bubble-net too.
Humpback whale facts
- Size: adults reach about 60 feet (18 m) and weigh up to around 40 tons.
- Lifespan: roughly 80 to 90 years.
- Migration: some populations travel about 5,000 miles between tropical breeding grounds and cold feeding waters. Whales from Hawaiʻi mostly head to southeast Alaska and northern British Columbia, a trip of roughly 3,000 miles that can take as little as 28 days.
- Feeding season: humpbacks feed from spring to autumn in high-latitude waters such as Alaska’s.
- Conservation: after a 2016 review, NOAA divided humpbacks into 14 distinct population segments. Nine have recovered and are no longer listed under the Endangered Species Act, four are endangered and one, the Mexico population, is threatened. All humpbacks remain protected under the Marine Mammal Protection Act.
Whale watching in Alaska
Humpbacks spend the spring-to-autumn feeding season in Alaskan waters, and whale-watching boat tours are the classic way to see them. On a good day you may see bubble rings and a group lunge for yourself.
Give the whales room: in Alaska and Hawaiʻi it is illegal to approach a humpback within 100 yards, by land or sea, and NOAA recommends keeping that distance from all large whales. A pair of binoculars and patience bring you closer than any boat should.
Continue with whales beneath Norway’s northern lights, or explore Alaska through a wider landscape collection.
Related reading
- Alaska’s Changing Glaciers: A Guide to the Historic Photo Pairs
- Five Alaskan Landscape Photographs: Mountains, Water and Northern Light
- Valdez Heli-Skiing: H2O Guides in the Chugach
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