Whales in a Changing Ocean – Richard Sidey (2021)

As the Ephesian philosopher Heraclitus stated, ‘Panta rhei! Everything changes in a constant state of flow…’ The same is true for Antarctica: nothing is stationary. The only constant is change. One noticeable and increasingly evident change is the recovery of the humpback whales that feed in the waters off the Antarctic Peninsula, after industrial whaling almost wiped them out.

In February 2020, wildlife filmmaker Richard Sidey was invited to join a team of scientists undertaking humpback whale research in Antarctica with Conservation International. Whales in a Changing Ocean follows the team as they observe humpback whale behavior and gather information vital to protecting the Antarctic continent into the future.

The team uses a crossbow to collect tissue samples, and the drone footage provides revealing observations, such as the bubble-net feeding technique primarily observed in the Northern Hemisphere when humpbacks hunt fish such as herring. Whales have occasionally been observed feeding collectively using this method. Researchers are curious whether this behavior is linked to specific periods of resource scarcity.

Whales in a Changing Ocean – Richard Sidey (2021)