University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln Publications, Agencies and Staff of the .SU . U.S. Department of Commerce Department of Commerce 2003 Good Whale Hunting Robert L. Pitman National Marine Fisheries Service Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/usdeptcommercepub Pitman, Robert L., "Good Whale Hunting" (2003). Publications, Agencies and Staff of ht e U.S. Department of Commerce. 509. http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/usdeptcommercepub/509 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the U.S. Department of Commerce at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Publications, Agencies and Staff of the .SU . Department of Commerce by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. NATURALIST AT LARGE Good Whale Hunting Two tantalizing Russian reports take the author on a quest to the Antarctic, in search of two previously unrecognized kinds of killer whale. By Robert L. Pitman hey always remind me of witch’s hats—a little bit of THalloween in the winter wonderland. Looking across a flat plain of frozen Antarctic sea ice, I watch as a herd of killer whales swims along a lead—a long, narrow crack in the six- foot-thick ice. The fins of the males are black isosceles triangles, five feet tall, and they look like a band of trick- or-treaters coming our way. I am on board the U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker Polar Star as it back-and-rams the frozen ocean to open up a fourteen- mile-long channel into McMurdo Sta- tion, fifty feet at a whack. The Na- New killer whale on the block? Unlike the killer whale familiar to aquarium visitors, the kind pictured above, in the southern Ross Sea, lives in the Antarctic tional Science Foundation has offered pack ice. To find their way from one breathing hole to the next, the whales me a bunk on board the vessel while I “spyhop,” lifting their heads above the surface to get a better view before study the killer whales that inhabit the picking their way through the dangerous and shifting channels of pack ice. pack ice of the southern Ross Sea. In the early 1980s, whalers from the designated, so the description has to be whales (Balaenoptera bonaerensis). This former Soviet Union, presumably in scientifically ignored. The other de- form is likely just a summer visitor the mood for some new product scription, however, by Alfred Berzin to Antarctica. testing, slaughtered more than 900 and Vladimir Vladimirov, both ceta- Berzin and Vladimirov reported Antarctic killer whales in one season. cean biologists at the Pacific Research that the second form, which they pro- Workmen on the flensing deck of the Institute of Fisheries and Oceanogra- vided a name for—Orcinus glacialis— factory ships, where the blubber and phy in Vladivostok, Russia, provided in their belief that the species was new meat is stripped off the animals, some fairly solid evidence that there to science, lives mainly in the pack ice, quickly realized that two quite differ- might be two species of killer whale in where it may be a year-round resi- ent kinds of killer whale were being Antarctica. (Unfortunately, although dent. It occurs, they said, in herds that hauled up the slipway for processing. Berzin and Vladimirov designated a sometimes number in the hundreds of The differences were so striking that holotype specimen, it has subsequently individuals. The animal is between two groups of Soviet investigators in- been discarded.) One species, of three and five feet shorter than O. orca, dependently described new species of course, is the familiar denizen of Sea- with markings that are yellowish in killer whale from the Soviet catch World, a large black-and-white form color instead of white, and feeds al- data—though it is not clear from their that lives throughout the world’s most exclusively on fish. The yellow accounts whether they were describ- oceans but does not penetrate into the coloration is presumed to be from an ing the same, or different, new species. Antarctic ice. It travels in herds of be- infestation of diatoms. Caused by mi- In any event, one group’s descrip- tween ten and twenty animals and croscopic phytoplankton that occur in tion was too vague, and a holotype, or feeds almost exclusively on marine polar waters and on the underside of museum reference specimen, was not mammals, particularly Antarctic minke ice, the coloration is a characteristic of 24 NATURAL HISTORY December 2003/January 2004 all forms of pack-ice killer whales, but before the whales break the surface, is the only time they are allowed to not of O. orca. The pack-ice animal the sea boils vigorously and a perfect smoke while on board the Polar Star. also has much smaller teeth than O. circle of clear water opens up above Probably none of them has ever been orca, which may be related to its diet them. Most of the broken ice behind right up close to a whale in the wild of fish. Although the Russian descrip- the ship is tightly packed, and the before, and they aren’t quite sure what tion of O. glacialis is in many ways shards are hard and often sharp. The to expect. Some of the killer whales are convincing, most cetacean biologists adult whales are forcefully exhaling almost as long as our twenty-five-foot have not accepted the validity of a sec- just before surfacing, opening up a launch, and there is concern on the ond species, much less a third one (the breathing space several feet across so faces of the younger crew members, species described so vaguely by the they won’t cut or scrape their sensitive some only recently out of high school. second group of Soviet investigators). skin on the ice debris. Whale calves Someone asks me if I am going to be Yet the evidence is tantalizing enough also surface in the ring of open water, killing any whales today, and I realize I that I have come to the Antarctic right next to their mothers. should have given them a little talk Ocean to see for myself. Later that evening a different group before our initial outing. of twenty killer whales appears to be The launch is rather boxy looking, s the Polar Star sits motionless at socializing in a large open pool in our but somehow it churns ahead at forty Athe head of the channel we have channel. We count as many as twelve knots. We quickly catch up to the just created, killer whales that were individuals that seem to be practicing herd. These whales are the kind I swimming along the edge of the synchronized swimming: they charge came here to find: they are smaller pack ice are now moving toward us around at high speeds and make sharp than the usual form; and they have a through the broken ice that has filled in turns, all the while keeping in tight distinctive “cape,” or darker coloring behind the ship. As they enter the shoulder-to-shoulder formation. One on the back, in contrast to the lighter dense pack ice, their heads start sprout- animal is swimming upside-down at shading below, and yellowish instead ing up through the shattered of white patches. We are ice like giant black-and-white lucky to find them in open tulips. They are “spyhop- water. It is a fairly large group, ping”: hovering above the maybe fifty-five individuals, surface for a second or two, including several adult males where they seem to be eyeing and some very young calves. our vessel and the ice in be- They are scattered over a tween us and them, and then mile or so, in subgroups of easing straight back down between one and ten animals. into the water. My hope is to photograph as It dawns on us that the many individuals as I can from entire herd of thirty or so close range, to confirm that animals are leap-frogging they are the pack-ice types. I through the pack ice and also plan to collect some moving toward the stern of Pack-ice killer whales of the Ross Sea, probably the form to which biopsy samples, which will our ship, seemingly inter- Russian biologists gave the new species name Orcinus glacialis, are enable us to compare these ested in the pool of open also partly distinguishable by a “cape”—a dark coloring on the animals genetically with killer water that our prop wash has whale’s back that is distinct from the lighter shading below, typified whale populations elsewhere created. Sometimes individ- by the animal shown here. The cape is not present in O. orca. in the world, to determine uals pop up several times in just how distinct they are. If the same spot, apparently looking the surface when an adult female the whales are cooperative, we’ll get ahead for the next open water before strikes it midbody from below, pro- our photos and samples; if they’re eva- they proceed. Their heads jut high pelling it sideways and ten feet out of sive, all we’ll get is wet. out of the water, maybe six feet or so, the water. It looks like tons of fun. To collect the biopsy samples, I and they crane their necks to scan the have brought two crossbows along: a surface in search of the next breathing few days later we find another small crossbow if the whales allow us hole. Getting stuck under the ice Aherd of killer whales beyond the close access, and a compound cross- would spell certain death for these pack ice.