For the first time, scientists have calculated a detailed “energetic budget” for Hawaiʻi‘s short-finned pilot whales, revealing what it takes to power their extreme, 800-meter (2,600-feet) dives for food.
For the first time, scientists have calculated a detailed “energetic budget” for Hawaiʻi‘s short-finned pilot whales, revealing what it takes to power their extreme, 800-meter (2,600-feet) dives for food.
A new study led by the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa’s Hawaiʻi Institute of Marine Biology (HIMB) found an average adult whale must eat 142 squid daily to survive, scaling up to 416 million squid annually for the entire population of short-finned pilot whales. This data, published in the Journal of Experimental Biology, provides a new benchmark for protecting the historically understudied marine mammals.
“Pilot whales are one of the only oceanic dolphins that regularly dive to extreme depths—up to 1,000 meters—to find prey,” said William Gough, Marine Mammal Research Program (MMRP) postdoctoral researcher and lead author of the study. “This deep-diving, high-risk foraging strategy requires a delicate balance between the energy they spend and the energy they acquire. Our study is the first step in quantifying that balance for this specific population.”
Read More: University of Hawaii
Photo Credit: Bernhard_Staerck via Pixabay
